


The Burden of Knowledge

by JaybieJarrett



Category: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Original Work
Genre: Humans in Equestria, Multi, lore expansion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 18:05:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9619010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaybieJarrett/pseuds/JaybieJarrett
Summary: There is national friction between Equestria and the Crystal Empire as the Crystal Ponies rebel and the Princess's are concerned about the welfare of Princess Cadance who is going through something that only they can understand. The Elements of Harmony have their own hooves full with some strange ponies from another land who found themselves stranded in Ponyville. Post Season 3, Pre Season 4





	1. Innocence and Loss Therof

Celestia had seemed rather brusque, snappish almost that morning when Luna had asked her how things were, and later didn’t seem to notice her. But Luna wasn’t troubled for her sister’s manner but rather for her sister herself.  In the time after the restoration of the Crystal Empire the Crystal Ponies had inexplicably gone from being thankful to resenting their involvement in rebuilding the country.  Shining Armor and Cadance had their hooves full dealing with it all.

As Luna sat flipping through the book she was looking at, not truly paying attention to the words.  She was thinking about the conflict.  How could the Crystal Ponies be so ungrateful?  She didn’t expect the other ponies to be forever in their debt but a little cooperation certainly wasn’t too much to ask was it?    She reminded herself to be more careful as she nearly ripped a page out turning it.   She turned her focus on the words of the book she was reading, only to close it.  Bah, no need to be thinking about the Crystal Empire right now, it would only make her upset.   She used her magic to slide away the book onto the shelf and pick out another-an old childhood favorite and got herself so blissfully lost in it.  

Just the familiar first words could almost bring her back to the old days, in childhood, it was so long ago but the memory stood out.  Pleasant memories were something to hold onto when you needed a comfort from the other things-the like the depression of guilt that sometimes plagued her or the night horrors that came from the special knowledge  she had as one of her kind, the Alicorn’s Curse.    It brought her back to a time of innocence, before she came of age as an alicorn.   Through a rose colored view of the world it was so much better back then just her and Celly, with Momma and Daddy.  In the early days Momma and Father did the ruling leaving Luna and Celestia to be children.  Despite what some of the rumors said, Celestia and Luna had always been quite close.  In fact thinking back on it, without the filter of bitterness clearly some of the ponies who were close were shocked by her sudden change.  

Celly was the spitfire back in her youth, the more mischievous and trouble inclined of the two princesses.  Always with a scheme in her mind and a spark in her eye.  Oh what Luna would give to see Celestia as she had once been.  Mischievous, a trickster, but still so innocent.  Celly refused to be what she was expected, to act like a simple storybook princess and her plans for her rule over Equestria would make it .a paradise for any filly or colt,  Luna was the more grounded of the two and spoke sense into her sister.  She was the sensitive child, often the more rule abiding one.  She and Celestia shared secrets and Luna felt safe coming into her room at night-and even confiding in her fears about going through her maturation of an alicorn-and the curse.  Her parents never answered questions about it, from what she could recall.  Momma and Father avoided her eyes and told her it was something they couldn’t describe, or that it was improper to talk about.  The most they could assure her was that it didn’t hurt one’s body.  

But fate seemed to have cruel plans.  The dreadful creature, Discord had taken badly to the rulers of Equestria putting limitations on the mischief he was permitted to cause and he wreaked a horrible storm over Olde Canterlot.  Many ponies were killed in the conflict including-much to Equestria’s shock the King and Queen.  Celestia went reached her maturity as an Alicorn sometime after and something in her eyes changed.  She was no longer the filly Luna knew.  

“Luna!”  The Moon princess opened her eyes to find her older sister standing over her.  Celestia looked concerned.  “Are you allright?”

“Y-yes. “ Luna righted herself and set the book aside before her sister could see it.  However the book’s highly decorated spine seemed to take her notice.

“It’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen that.” Celestia noted.  “It was always your favorite when we were foals, but it looks as if it hasn’t seen daylight in hundreds of moons.  Why are you reading it now?” Luna hesitated.  She knew her older sister wouldn’t believe it if she said she just accidentally happened upon it, would she?  

“I wished to put my mind on other things.” She said, “Was there something you wished to tell me?” She was surprised when Celestia bowed her head.

“I wanted to apologize” she said.  “For my manner today.  I treated you badly for no reason at all.”  Luna smiled a little bit, after she had returned things had gotten better between her and Celestia.  

“Thank you, but I understand.  You’re worried about what’s going on with Crystal Empire, as am I.” she replied, “especially with Cady being involved.”  Celestia smiled and lowered her eyes.  

“That’s what scares me the most.”  The older princess glanced out a window as if it showed what were going on all the way in the Crystal Empire.   Shining Armor and Cadance were supposed to return a month after the Crystal Empire affair, when all was sorted out.  But it had been longer than that.  It was in the middle of the winter now.  They were supposed to be out of it by Hearths Warming Eve at the very latest.    Celestia sighed heavily and Luna saw the sense of heaviness in her eyes, the same heaviness that she noticed when the young mare took the throne.  “She’s reaching that age, Luna. Soon she’ll no longer be a child by alicorn standards and she’ll have to shoulder the responsibility our kind holds.”    

Luna broke away from following her gaze at the stars, in hope that they would calm her, and gaped at Celestia .  “What? Now?”  No,no,no,no.  Now was the worst possible time.  She had just gotten married for heaven’s sake!  Not to mention it was a delicate situation where she was.  

“Yes, now” Celestia said, “Perhaps I was wrong in choosing this time to send them, but I was certain that it wouldn’t take very long.  I had no reason to think that the crystal ponies would rebel.”  A thousand biting replies rose in Luna’s mind but she bit them back, remembering that such anger and blame in the face of trouble was what caused so many of her problems in the past.  

She reminded herself that she wasn’t truly angry at her sister, only panicking.  Celestia was right they had no reason to expect this.  

“If we’re lucky my timing is off or Cady will be a late bloomer. A few months could be enough to buy us time.  I have asked her to send word if she feels any different.  No matter what the best thing we can do is be there for her, and use our pain and mistakes to help her make the right choices.  Luna nodded.  She knew all too well that if not handled properly this could be very bad.  

\--

If one were to step across the gateway on the other side was a world also possessing magic, but grim and burdened, so much so that a great portion of its magic had been corrupted.  The good magic that remained was natural magic, woven into the being of some of its most sentient creatures. In a small rural town much like Ponyville, humans, not ponies lived, and went about their day. It was little known to most of them that a great sin of magic was about to be committed.

Skye Stryke was aiming to hurry out the door to meet with his friends.  He had to set his alarm to remind him to wake up.  Sleeping in had been a habit in the last year since the unfortunate incidences last spring, after all the loss he found himself trudging through most natural daily occurrences as if they were unpleasant chores like taking out the trash.  Living with his grandparents this had been enabled considering they hired private tutors to take care of his education.  But at his new home his aunt was firm believer in life as an antidepressant.  

So here he was dragging himself up at the unholy hour of eight in the morning. He was able to motivate himself with the reminder that there were important things to do today.   He noted as he reentered the room between morning showers and meals that spring was on its back again.  Too soon.  Way too soon.  He could handle it but he couldn’t know how his younger brother was going to take it.  

“What are you doin’ up  so early on a Saturday” he heard Aunt Marina from the other room.  Stupid one story houses.  “You know I made an exception for those.”  

“I have to go out today.”  He said, “Got to meet Gem and Rus.”  There wasn’t much use bothering to spend too much time on his hair, he grabbed a few things and hastily stuffed them in a bag and then headed out the door.  He could grab a quick snack on his way out.  

“What are you doing this early?”  Marina looked like she didn’t believe they were ‘hanging out’ at seven in the morning. Fair enough, he had to admit.  

“Uh…just stuff.  Working on homework maybe.”  He said, “Did Felix tell you where he went before he left?”    

“Yeah right.  Like you’d be going out this early to do homework with your motorcycle-driving twice-expelled adult cousin. “Marina caught him by the bag and held him back.  While she seemed like the cool permissive aunt she could, at the same time be a bit more stringent than his mother was.  “Now what’s really going on?” Skye sighed and rolled his eyes before he turned around. However he knew from the look on her face that she somehow knew he did that.  If he didn’t know she wasn’t his dad’s kind, Skye would have sworn she was a mind reader (well he would…if mind readers worked that way).  

“We’re not doing anything dangerous.  We’re just talking with Felix about something.  He might have an idea of who the Toyakas are sending to watch us.”  He said.  In the last summer he and his brother met quite of few of his father’s rival family, and the fact that his parents were no longer alive made it obvious that the Toyakas hadn’t stopped fighting even those who no longer wanted to be part of the family tradition.  He knew that Shiro and his sister weren’t sent here just to go to a new school.  “Think about it, they could send people right here.”  Marina let go of his backpack but he could still see the concern in her face.  

“Just be careful, okay.” She said, “You’ve been lucky so far, but …I just don’t want to lose you, kid.”  

“I will.”  Skye said, “And don’t worry, you won’t.”   He gave her a quick hug and ran out the door.  She shouted something after him about the café- he assumed that if must be where Felix ad Caleb were. When he stopped at the Tektons ,  his aunt and late mother’s old friend. “Good morning, Dr. Tekton, are Gem and Rus ready yet?”

“They’re getting ready, come on in.”  She led him into the house, although he already knew the place by heart.  “Pretty early for a Saturday, aren’t you.”  She smiled warmly, “It’s good to see up and about, again Skye.”  She didn’t say much more but they both knew what she was trying to say, how well he had recovered since the loss of his parents.  It got frustrating how people acted around him since he returned to Banquo, but he knew at least that Dr. Tekton had the best of intentions.   He waited in the kitchen making small talk with his friends’ parents while he waited for them to meet up with him.    First to emerge from the door was Rusty.  

“Whoa, you weren’t kidding about early.”  He said grabbing a breakfast for himself.

“We got a lot of stuff to do.” Skye said, “And not nearly enough daylight to do it in.”  

“..eheh I thought we were just hanging out.”  Rusty smiled nervously and subtly made a motion toward his parents when they turned around talking their own business amongst themselves.

“Yeah, but still we need to be efficient.” Skye said. His friend groaned, fighting the urge to smack his forehead with his palm. He picked at the bandage on his hand.  “Is Gem all right?”  

“She’ll be just a few,” Rusty said, shrugging.  

“But, how’s she doing?”  Skye asked looking at him intently. He seized the moments when the Tektons weren’t paying attention.   Rusty fidgeted a bit and shifted his position against the wall.   When the Tekton siblings went to see him while visiting their grandmother a few months ago, their friendship with him got them in some trouble.  

“Dude, she’s doing all right.  You don’t have to worry.”  He gave Skye a light smack on the shoulder. “You ain’t responsible for what that jerk does, he ain’t even your full brother.”  

“Yeah, okay.” Skye said.  They both stopped talking as they heard the sound of platform sneakers in the hall.  Neither of them wanted to appear as if they were talking behind Gemma’s back.  She had a penchant for taking things personally.  She came in from the other room, still tying her hair into a scrunchie.

“Who is whose full brother?”  Gemma asked, looking between them, “Rusty….”

“Dex” Rusty said quickly as his twin started to give him a look, “Dex isn’t Skye’s full brother.”

“…uh…yeah…everyone knows that.”  She said, “I’ll just grab a few meal bars to go.”  She left again and Skye decided they should change the subject away from dangerous territory.  

“Still going vegetarian huh? Impressive.”  He said.  Rusty nodded.

“Damn straight, I couldn’t go without meat for a day.” He said, seemingly both proud of his sister’s self control and thinking she had to be nuts.  Both of the Tektons looked over at him sternly. “What?   I was giving her a compliment.”     At that even Skye had to give him a look, a side eyed glance asking if he was even trying.  

“Let’s just go.”  Gemma returned from the pantry, and started ushering the boys out before any yelling started.   “Bye Mom, bye Dad.  Love you!”    Skye and Rusty took her cue and started leaving with awkward goodbyes.    

“So did Caleb tell you guys about this?” Skye asked.  Rusty snorted.

“Caleb, tell us things?  There’s a laugh.”  He said harshly.  Apparently Rusty getting along with his older brother when they last met was a temporary truce.  All it took was being back home for them to start bickering again.  Skye had only a few memories of seeing his friends’ older brother around town but he could remember that Caleb and Rusty did not get along.  Granted Caleb had been getting in some trouble back then and their bickering was for entirely different reasons.

“He wants to keep us safe Rusty.  Knock it off will you?” Gem glared at him, in the same way she had when she overheard them talking about Skye’s older brother and he had a thought that Rusty might have said something very uncalled for at some point.  He shook it off knowing that Rus wouldn’t sink that low, he and his sister had been at the brunt of some nasty teasing themselves. “You’re such a jerk.”  

“Guys…”  Skye said.  He hated to get in the middle of a sticky sibling fights, but it was worse to sit by and listen.  He couldn’t afford to deal with the two being angry at each other while they tried to do something “Chances are he probably expected Felix to tell me.”  

“I thought he knew Felix better than that.”  Skye got out his cellphone to send a message.  

“Apparently not.”   He sent Felix a few messages in succession.  He figured that Felix wouldn’t forget this time as he had a rather obnoxious ringtone.   He flipped the phone close with an audible snap.  It grated on his nerves more often than it amused him that he was more responsible than the twenty year old.   As he watched and waited for the roar of a muffler he noted someone else, a certain pair in a car.   When he made eye contact with the driver, and saw familiar smirk with one unusually sharp tooth, Skye gripped his phone.  

They were here.  Not only were they here, but how the hell was Shiro driving?  He knew that the other teen was older than him, but not by that much.  No secret he lied or cheated his way to it.  He made contact right back and gave him a look of warning to tell him that at least some people in this town knew what he was.  The rocks around him shook, and if Shiro weren’t driving a car or people weren’t watching, Skye would have hurled one of them right at him.

For all their paranoia and concern over plans, none of the teens knew something else was watching them.  

 

\----

 

Two pairs of hooves were making their way Tartarus-bent on getting back to the base before they collapsed.  Their queen waited for them, expectant on getting the news that they had just gotten.  The changelings bowed at the feet of Chrysalis, taking the opportunity to catch their breath.  

“Your Majesty!”  They both panted.  “We …we have gathered information on -on the state of the Crystal Empire.”  

“Good work, now come out of the cold, my changelings” She led them down into the underground entrance of the hive.  She reached over to pull down the entrance they had engineered.  Times had been hard when their power started to deplete but they learned to make do.  As the two followed their queen and matriarch they found more of their fellows waiting expectantly.  Hopefully they wouldn’t mind a few more minutes, one thought, because his heart was still hammering and throat still burning from the sharpness of the cold.  

Chrysalis led them to a place to sit and offered them something to warm their throats.  They were able to eat food but it gave them minimal nourishment and left them hungry soon after. But it was the best they had.  Most of Equestria now saw them as monsters, if they didn’t already before.  

“So” Chrysalis asked, as they downed the herb soup.  “What did you find?”

“There is talk…” one of the young changelings said, “some of the crystal ponies think that they don’t need Equestria’s help anymore. “

“Really now?”  Chrysalis said, looking skeptical.  Equestria had just saved them it seemed a bit too good to be true.  The changeling nodded eagerly.  

“Yes.  S-some of them are saying that they –they don’t need regular ponies’ help.”  The other finished.  “Someponies are e-even saying that i-it’s weird that the Equestrian royals a-are still there and i-intruding.  Like…like they want to rule i-“Queen Chrysalis suddenly leapt up and hugged the stuttering changeling. He was already mortified as it was and amongst the whispering one young changeling muttered a wry comment to his friend.  

Unfortunately for that poor fellow, Chrysalis noticed him and not someone else and she let go of the nervous cadet and then calmly made her way over to him.  She got close and hissed in his face, “What did you say?”

“N-Nothing” he said.  She leaned forward knocking him over, “I-it was nothing your highness…I meant no offense. “  

“You MEANT no offense? YOU MEANT NO OFFENSE?  I do not care whether you meant offense or not, you have disrespected your queen!”  she snarled.  She stood back up still glaring at him.  All the other changelings stepped away from him, including the friend he had been sharing his comment with.  When Chrysalis walked over to the other changeling, who at the queen’s command told her what he had said.  It was a harmless comment really, but all the same it sealed his fate, all of the others gave him dirty looks.   Chrysalis turned around to address all her subjects.  

“Now, listen up!  We have a chance that only comes once in a thousand moons.  We will get back at Equestria through the Crystal Empire. We will turn them against the Equestrians, and then when they are weak and alone we will take them and go to war with Equestria.”  There were a few whispers but when she gave them a sharp look, all went quiet.  “For the first phase you will go out, pose as Crystal Ponies and aggravate the delicate political situation.”  She nodded toward the changeling who had incurred her wrath.  “Our friend here and his buddy will go first.”  

The two changelings gulped , still avoiding each other’s glance.  


	2. Management Runs in The Family

Shining Armor had been up almost all night, thinking over what was going on.  It was just a few angry ponies far and in-between that objected to Equestrian rule, but it was starting to feel like far more than that.  His mind didn’t want to let him forget the problem, but thankfully exhaustion let him rest, somewhere around two in the morning. He went out to the balcony and watched the sunrise over the empire.  Somehow it still held that wonder of when they first arrived, the light of bright yellow and tangerine orange lighting up the streets and houses.  He felt something on his shoulder and looked down to see Cadance leaning against him.

“Good morning” Her wing draped over him in a sort of hug.  She looked at least as sleepy as he did.  “Sorry I woke you up last night.”  

“Don’t worry about it.” He said, giving her neck a nuzzle. “It wasn’t you; there were other things on my mind.” Cadance had a nightmare a few nights ago, waking up in tears but not wanting to talk about it.  Last night she seemed restless. Shining didn’t push it; he hated to see her so upset.    Well that and he didn’t want to make her mad at him,  every now and then it seemed like a harmless comment set her off into a fuming rage.  After all was said and done, she would tell him to just forget it and went back to being the loving and patient mare that he knew.  He wanted to ask what was going on, but he knew he had to be careful about how he did it.  

“Has there been any news?”  Cadance asked.  

“Not this early in the morning.”  Shining shook his head. The Crystal Ponies seemed to love Equestria right after the curse was broken.  They hailed them as their heroes and had been giving Shining Armor the utmost respect when they found out that his sister was one of the ponies responsible for finding the Crystal Heart.  But recently a few of them suddenly seemed to think that the few rules that had been put in place, for their protection were oppressive.  The Princesses had told them to put guards around the perimeters of the Empire, still unsure that Sombra was entirely gone.  It wasn’t that they weren’t letting anyone out, just that they were taking precautions. They established a curfew - nobody was allowed outside the Empire after dark- so a team of Patrol Unicorns could run tests to make sure all the black magic was fading.  Sombra had been defeated once with the Elements and came back, so it was important to be sure.  But it seemed that some ponies were declaring these measures to be oppressive.  Rumors were buzzing around suggesting that Equestria wanted control of the Crystal Empire. “Maybe it’s just a few of the really paranoid ones saying all this.”  

“They were oppressed by Sombra for at least a thousand years.”  Cadance said, “It makes sense that they’re worried. We just have to keep calm.  They’ll realize that we don’t mean any harm. “

“I guess.”  As Shining looked over the kingdom, lit up with the colors of the sunrise he thought about something else.  Soon after he married Cadance, he started thinking about the future. What would happen when one of them grew and the other stayed young?  When they started talking about it Cadance told him about a ritual involving very complicated magic that could turn a pony into an alicorn. It required an alicorn to cast sometimes more than one and was reserved for those who married into royalty, like him.  It was something he put off thinking about afterward just enjoying the time spent with his beloved.  He was still young, he could wait.  Soon after that the trouble with the Crystal Empire ponies started, and Cadance had her nightmare.  He was starting to get the feeling that the nightmare was only the start of something.  

No, it was only stress.  She was in a tough situation, being a ruler of a country and having so much to worry over.  Everypony had nightmares.  

“Shining?” Cadance nudged him. “Are you all right, you’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Yeah…just thinking.”  He said.  

“Have you been thinking, about …you know…” she lowered her voice, “The ritual?”

“Huh?”  He looked at her, “No” He hadn’t talked much about it since she told him.  That was something they could worry about later, he told her.  He was interested in it, but it wasn’t important right now.  Maybe in some small corner of his mind he didn’t want to give Cadance a reason to think that he married her for status.  It was stupid he told himself, she already knew that and knew him.  But still…it was there.  Being in Canterlot , he had seen quite a few ponies-stallion and mare- who married for status.  Status was the only reason he could imagine that mares would chase after a whiner like Blueblood.  He wanted to make sure that Cadance knew she was more than a title to him.    He wasn’t the sort of pony who would chase after power or prestige.  The role of being a prince was the only thing that kept him from making his proposal to Cadance the moment he realized his feelings.

When he was young and just learning how to use his magic, after his cutie mark appeared, his father took him aside for private lessons.  One of the first things he was taught was the danger if abuse of power. His father told him of many ambitious unicorns who brought themselves or others to sticky ends.  The last one, a stallion who sought advanced powers that went into things he could not comprehend, had the deepest affect on Shining -leaving him shivering in bed at night and wishing he wasn’t a unicorn.  He got over it but it taught him not to go after power he wasn’t ready for.  

When he joined the royal guard, the Captain was a good friend who pulled strings to get him in and a trusted mentor.  But as time went on Shining started to see his other side-a stallion that cared more about the perks of the job than the job itself. Shining Armor learned he wasn’t the only ‘friend’ the Captain had-and with his friendship came the expectation to help and cover for him.  Shining caught him shirking his duty for a night in the Canterlot Casino.  He had paid off someone to cover him for a “personal emergency”.  He tried to confront the captain but was told that he ‘owed’ him.  

He kept it for a little while, feeling hurt, betrayed and guilty.  It caused him to become so withdrawn that his father noticed and talked with him.  A few gentle prods later the secret became too much and Shining Armor spilled his guts to his father, both wishing he hadn’t spoken and relieved to be free of the burden.

“I can’t tell you what to do anymore, son it’s your life.” His father said, “But if the captain were truly a friend, he wouldn’t ask this of you.  He is not entitled to your servitude because he did you a favor. ” He left Shining with something to think about-“What’s more important to you the respect of a stallion who’s using you or your integrity?”  With a dry throat and uneasy stomach he found himself in the castle, right outside the castle staff’s door trying to think of how he was going to say this.

“ **Hello good citizen!** ”  He jumped when he heard the rather loud voice and when he saw who it was  his heart nearly stopped.  Princess Luna!  He gulped and tried to breathe again.

“p-Princess!”  he stammered hastily bowing-and in the process smacking himself with his foreleg, “Ow…”  Luna sighed and rolled her eyes.  

“Thou beith afraid of us as well, don’t thou”  she muttered in a weird mix of old and modern Equestrian Basic.  

“uh …of course not !” Shining said hastily, “I mean…not unless you want me to your majesty!”  

“No, we do not.” Luna said.  “Though we are sorry to say we doubt your sincerity.” The young stallion cringed.  He didn’t think he sounded convincing either.  

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.  I’m just jumpy this morning.  I’m trying to prepare to do something very difficult.”  Just thinking about the look the Captains face when he finds out ‘one of his colts’ sold him out.  What if this didn’t do anything but make him a pariah amongst the guard stallions.  His sister looked up to him so much, how would she feel about him when he was known as “Shining Armor the Snitch”?

“You did appear to have a heavy heart when I saw you.  Would you like to talk about it?”  Shining Armor blinked taken aback.  He didn’t want to turn her down and insult, after all she was a Princess, for the Great Queen’s sake!  But he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to spill his guts.

“Sure” He said hesitantly.  She invited him to walk with her and he followed, all the way to the royal courtyard.  

“What burdens your heart?”  he took a deep breath

“We-e-ell someone who helped me and who I thought was a friend is asking me to cover for him doing something wrong, and he says that I owe him.” He started out slow but then quickened to the point where he said most of it in one breathe. Luna just raised a brow.  

“Is it the Captain?”  He blinked in surprise.  “We shall take that as a yes. We have seen him about and wondered if he had other duties.  We didn’t say anything because, we weren’t certain.  But now… **.THE KNAVE SHALL PAY FOR HIS ABUSES OF PRIVILEGE** -oh we’ve done it again haven’t we?”  Shining had without realizing it backed up against the wall and was flinching at the Princess’s show of anger. “We shall take it from here, Shining Armor. “    He was left a little bit stunned, wondering how it could have been that easy.  He didn’t even have to give names.  It seemed that thinking he had ponies covering him made the Captain careless.

Soon after there was a court martial about it, and Shining was the one member of the guard who served as a witness against the Captain.  He wouldn’t lie, the time during the proceedings was tough, the Captain’s few loyalists shunned him, and everyone else wouldn’t talk to him for fear of punishment. The Captain wasn’t allowed to kick Shining Armor out, but Shining wished he could.  The days where he came home after being insulted shoved kicked and worked to his limits were some of his darkest.  But during the witness hearings, stallions who had quit the Royal Guard over it all came forward to give their accounts.  It got easier learning that there was some who agreed with him, and it gave him the strength to go to work every day and face those who didn’t.  In the end it paid off, the Captain and those reverently supporting him were given the boot, and at that point several of the stallions that were bullied into silence spoke up, apologizing for not talking to him.  

He also got a bit of a surprise soon after when some very important ponies came to him about the matter of the new Captain of the Royal Guard.

“You want me to be Captain?”  He had asked bewildered, “B-but I’ve only been in the Guard for a few years!”

“A lot of the high ranked stallions were either part of the Captain’s deceit, or left over it since the supporters of the Captain ostracized them and their attempts to report him came to nothing.”   Spitfire, the Captain of the Wonderbolts explained.  While separate from the Guard, the Wonderbolts were still considered a branch of the military. The head of the guard, the only authority over the captain had been replaced after the court martial as it was found that she had helped the Captain because of her refusal to penalize “such a hero” for doing something wrong.  

“O-oh” Shining said.

“But aside from that, you were the only member of the Royal Guard with the courage and integrity to stand up and do something when you knew your superior was abusing his power.”  Shining felt his face burn.  “and that takes a special kind of conviction.”  

“Thank you, I appreciate it, I…” he didn’t know what to say.  Literally.  “Though this kind of power seems like a lot and-“

“You don’t think you’re ready?”  The Head of the Guard chuckled, “The most deserving never are. I believe that you will wear it responsibly and with honor. “  

“Thank you.”  He accepted the position –and while it took time to get used to being the Captain, he eventually grew into it.  But being a leader was much bigger than being a Captain-being an Alicorn Prince even more so.  He didn’t want to take on the great responsibility that being an Alicorn before he knew what he was getting into- and when the time was right. At the moment the time was most certainly not right.  He had to think about how his actions looked to the Crystal Ponies, and suddenly becoming a royal Alicorn would most definitely cause fear and possibly revolts.   “The right time will come, but now is not it.”  

 

*****

 

Winter had come and gone again for Twilight Sparkle-now Princess Sparkle –and the wrapping up of winter was fast approaching.  It had been a few months since the coronation and Ponyville adored having something to hold to pride that they had a royal princess living in town.  One could say that Ponyville was often like the forgotten middle child of Equestria.  Since Twilight had shown up and things began happening the once-small backwater town was getting a taste of importance.  It had all started, fittingly with the Summer Sun Festival that was graced with the presence of the Princess herself.  

Twilight understood this but that didn’t mean she enjoyed the special attention she sometimes got.  There were many instances where fillies and colts would come by the library and select a book just to get a glimpse at her and the book would just be returned the next day.  She wished the attention would stop shining on her. Being told by the town how excited and proud they were for her was completely flattering and great the first time.  Being told the fiftieth time however, was just getting old. But she dared not say this.  She would just smile, rather bashfully and thank them.  It was starting to cool down; Twilight hoped this meant it was sinking in for them.  

She was busy trying to prepare herself for what it meant to be a Princess.  She has always been responsible but it still made her nervous.  There was a lot of difference between being responsible in regular life, and being a good princess.  She had sent a letter to Celestia when worry took over and she started feeling like she wasn’t prepared.  That …coincidentally coincided with her reading a history book about a war.   Celestia sent a letter back rather promptly and it explained quite a lot.  The test in the Crystal Empire had been preparation for her as a ruler.

_"I know you may not feel ready, but after all you have done I am confident that you will be a wonderful leader."_

Celestia’s words were a comfort to her.  If Celestia thought she was capable, surely that had to mean something right?  She kept the letter as a reminder for when she felt like she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t going to let her mentor down.  

One chilly morning Twilight was called to the Mayor’s office. As she made her way she appreciated the sights.  Snow still capped the roofs of the houses and buildings. Aside from a few children playing there weren’t that many ponies out there.   Twilight herself preferred to stay inside during the winter cozed up by the fire with a nice blanket and a good book.  With these new wings she could also keep Spike cuddled up nearby.  The idea just seemed perfect to her that she couldn’t wait for later in the evening or afternoon if time allowed.  

“Princess?” she looked up at the sound of the Mayor’s voice. Mayor Mare and her intern were both outside waiting bundled up for the cold.  

“Oh…Mayor. “ Twilight said, “You caught me offgaurd.  And no need for that…just call me Twilight like always.”

“Well, I did want to discuss some business matters, like this year’s Winter Wrap Up” she said, leading me toward Town Hall.  The request was simple but rather surprising,  Mayor Mare wanted Twilight to completely organize and manage Winter Wrap up.  

“But…don’t I do that already…?” she asked, confused.

“What I mean is...”the Mayor drew a long breath, “I will be out of town meeting with some other town officials in Manehatten. So I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be organizing in my place than you Pr- er Twlight.”  

“Well…thank you.” Twilight said. Maybe this was one of her first challenges as a Princess. “You can count on me, Mayor Mare.”    

“Thank you and I knew I could.”  Twilight walked home thinking about everything that needed to be planned for Winter Wrap Up, muttering them under her breath as she walked.  To somepony that didn’t know her, it might have looked strange but most of the ponies that knew her well knew that it meant there was a lot going on in her head.  She decided that she would focus on what had to be done rather than how big of a responsibility it was.  

“So we have the sky clearing- the pegasi can take care of that, as well as taking care of the birds.  Fluttershy can take care of the animals with the help of the system I rigged up last yea-“

“HEY TWILIGHT!”  Rainbow Dash spotted her from above and flew down, “You want to do some more flying practice?” Twilight sighed.  Not that she didn’t appreciate the offer, but there was a lot to be done.

“Normally I’d love to but I’ve got a big job ahead of me.’ She said, “The mayor’s going to be out of town on Winter Wrap Up and she wants me to organize and lead it.”

“You did it last year didn’t you?  It’ll be no sweat!”  Dash gave her a little nudge, “and if you feel like helping clear the skies this time around…”

“I’ll think about it.”  Twilight said with a chuckle.  When she went home she set right to planning, well after making some tea and lighting a warm fire in the fireplace.  She and Spike enjoyed a warm drink while she planned out all the duties that needed to be done for Winter Wrap Up.

“Maybe we could ask Zecora if there’s anything she wants to do to help?” Twilight suggested.  Zecora hadn’t been invited last time because the town was still unsure of her.  It would be nice to at least offer her a chance to join in the town tradition.  

“That sounds good.  Maybe I can help with making nests.” Twilight chuckled.  Any excuse to be close to Rarity.  But she wouldn’t discourage him.  

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”  In time afternoon turned to evening and Spike dozed off.  Twilight followed as soon as she had dotted all her I’s and crossed all her T’s.  The next day she set to looking over everything she did yesterday.  It was interrupted, however when she got a letter.  

_Dear Twily,_

_Hey , how’s it been?  I bet Ponyville looks nice this time of year, the Crystal Empire looked amazing this winter._

_So getting used to those wings yet?  I’d be checkin’ ‘em out right away if it were me- see what tricks I could do._

_The Crystal Empire is proving a bit of a challenge lately.  I can handle it….I just hope Cadence doesn’t get too overstressed about it all.  We’ll manage._

_Just out of curiosity….you’re sure Sombra’s gone right?  Please don’t worry I’m just making sure._

_Anyway, stay awesome Princess Twily_

_Much Love,_

_Shining Armor_

She must have reread it five times.  Her heart hadn’t stopped racing after she read it.  The Crystal Empire was a challenge and her brother was asking about Sombra.  Shining had never been good at hiding when he was concerned. Perhaps Cadence was just stressed.   Yeah, maybe Shining was just worried about her.    She got out a quill and started writing a letter.  

_Dear Shining Armor_

….and that was it.  She couldn’t come up with anything else.  She wasn’t sure what blocked her, she desperately wanted to know what he was so worried about, but the words just wouldn’t come.  She was also late for meeting her friends.  She had to meet Applejack about the crops and Rainbow Dash about the weather ponies.  She put the letter aside and went out to meet Applejack.  She knew her friend didn’t appreciate lateness.  She would understand if Twilight explained but Twilight didn’t want to worry the others.

“Twi!  For lands sakes what took ya so long?”  Applejack hurried up to meet her.  

“Sorry….got uh caught up reading the mail.” It technically wasn’t a lie, but she still felt Applejack’s gaze on her linger.  They went on to talk about plans for how to get the crops done faster this year, but Twilight couldn’t seem to remember her plan.  All she could think of was Shining’s letter.  She nodded and agreed with Applejack’s plan.

“You all right sugarcube, you seem awful distracted.”

“No-I..um I’m just fine, so  ….that all sounds good.” Twilight said, “Now I have an appointment with Rainbow Dash....and then I need to swing by the house before I meet Rarity, you know Spike wouldn’t like it if I left him behind. “  She rushed off leaving Applejack a little surprised.  She felt bad for not being completely honest but she would tell them later when there wasn’t so much going on.  Winter Wrap Up was the most important thing now.  

As she went about the preparations the letter was on the back of her mind and she was thinking about what to say.  By the time she got home she had more of the letter written.  

_Dear Shining Armor_

_Ponyville has been absolutely wonderful this season.  It’s always sad to say goodbye to the lovely colors of winter.  I missed you this Hearth’s Warming Eve, I hope someday we can have Hearth’s Warming Eve together again like the old days._

_I’m trying to get used to sleeping with them first.  It’s a bit of a challenge to get used to.  Rainbow Dash already called ‘dibs’ on teaching me to fly.  I think she’s really looking forward to having someone to fly with.  I’m a bit worried I’ll never be able to catch up to her._

_I’m sorry to hear you’re having trouble.  I hope you and Cadence all the best.  What’s going on?  Did you see a trace of Sombra?  Please tell me Shining; I just want to know you’re okay._

_All Of My Love,_

_Twilight Sparkle._

She put it on the mailbox and that night as she tried to sleep the letter was the only thing on her mind.  Every possible thing that could happen went through her mind.  In the next days that passed she tried to put the matter out of her mind and focus on organizing Winter Wrap up.  For a little bit she was successful by telling herself she was probably overreacting.

But when the letter didn’t come after a week she got distracted.  Winter Wrap up was coming closer and all she could think about was Shining Armor and Cadance.  She became quiet during the town meetings if she could get away with it.  Even her friends seemed to notice.  She always thought the worst when she saw them talking.

“No..don’t worry…” she told herself,  “just wait til Winter Wrap up is over, then I’ll tell them”  She reassured herself during the next day.  It probably wouldn’t last but it would hold her over.

“Twi….”  Applejack cornered her after the meeting. “You don’t seem yourself lately…”

“I’m fine” Twilight said.

“Is it this princess stuff, because you know you can talk ta me about it.”

“I’m fine” Twilight took a deep breath.  She was starting to get annoyed. Applejack started saying something again and something in her snapped. “Applejack…I’m fine!”   When she realized what she did she gulped and then said, “I’m sorry…I’m fine, don’t worry.”   She quickly went home holding back the urge to cry.  

The next days she tried to be aware of losing her temper she hadn’t got much sleep.   Winter Wrap Up was coming closer.   Then it all came crashing down the next day.  It started when she looked in her mailbox yet again to get no response from her brother.  She watched the clock ticking.  At this point Winter Wrap up was nothing but  stress she couldn’t wait to get past. She just wanted to put it off.  All that mattered was the letter.  To know if her brother was safe or not.  She kicked herself mentally for not being clear enough in her letter.    

She started on another letter throwing away several drafts until Spike came in to remind her that it was almost time to leave.  She told him she was busy and he left looking a little surprised.

“Spike…I’m sorry Spike….”   She gave up on the letter and started getting ready for the meeting.  Spike didn’t talk much.    Only a few hours and she could get back, and go to sleep and wait for the next day.  She could do this…..  Winter Wrap Up was going well enough.  She thought.  

She managed to make it through half of the meeting, though when  she walked in she heard the word ‘Princess’.  Were they talking about her?  All the possibilities of what they could be saying flew through her head.

“She’s gotten so stuck up since she became Princess”

“She probably thinks she’s better than everyone”

“Did you hear her snapping at her friend the other day,  so much for the Princess of Friendship!”

“She can’t handle it….I think Celestia thinks too much of her”  

She shook it off and took her seat.  It was ridiculous. They wouldn’t say that,  and they didn’t know anything.   As the meeting went on , it started to feel like everyone was talking too fast.  But she couldn’t’ understand or keep up.  She only caught little bits.  

Fifty weather ponies on duty?  That was ridiculous they don’t even have fifty weather ponies. She tried to say something but they kept talking over her.  The blood was rushing to her head.

They weren’t following her plans….  She carefully laid out a plan.

Why were they ignoring her…

WHY WEREN’T THEY LISTENING?

“STOP!” she yelled, “I made a plan already.  We don’t even have fifty weather ponies.  We have twenty four twelve east twelve west!  All we need to do is the same thing we did LAST YEAR! IS THAT SO HARD?”  Everyone stared.  

Rainbow Dash and Applejack exchanged looks while some of the others muttered sheepish apologized.

“That’s what I was saying”  “Geez Twi, chill out”   Twilight felt her heart sinking as she watched all of them.  She had just yelled at her friends and fellow townspeople.  Her first test and she already blew it.  She noticed Fluttershy sniffling and felt a moist warmth in her eyes.

She was the worst princess ever.  

“…I-I’m sorry…I didn’t…” she rushed out of the room before anyone could see her tears.  As she rushed home, her entire body was burning with humiliation, so much she couldn’t feel the  chill of the snow against her normally sensitive hooves

‘Why me Celestia?’

Why now?

She locked herself in her room and curled up on her bed.  The only thing on her mind was the shocked faces of the townspeople. 

*****

 

There was a dull roar of mutterings in the town hall.  A few ponies muttered indignantly while most others exchanged worried whispers.  Most of them looked concerned, having gotten to know Twilight for two years, and knew that that this wasn’t like her.  

“She’s really stressed out”  Bon Bon said.

Applejack was shocked, and a little bit angry.  Twilight had told her over and over she was fine.  That she couldn’t handle it.  Why hadn’t she been honest?  Twilight had been the one to insist she was okay and everything was fine. She sighed in frustration.

‘That’s it’ Applejack thought.  She took off for Twilight’s house to have a talk with the mare about what honesty and friendship meant.  She pounded on the library door until Spike opened it.  

“Twilight’s upstairs” he said.   She made straight for the room upstairs where Twilight sat curled up on her bed crying.  Hearing her sobs was enough to make Applejack’s anger melt away. She carefully approached the bed.  

“Honey,  why didn’t you tell us?”  she said quietly.  Twilight didn’t answer for a little bit, “I offered to help…”

“I-I didn’t want t-to worry you.”  Twilight sniffled and looked up.  “I was going to tell you after Winter Wrap Up.  Bu-but”  

“I know you’re dealin’ with a lot of responsibility, but it’s like ya told me.  You can’t be too proud to ask for help”   Twilight sniffled.

“b-but….I didn’t want to worry you” She said weakly

“Sugarcube we’ve been worried for the last week since you ain’t been yourself. “  Applejack said, “Your friends know when somethin’s up.  And it’s more worryin’ for us when we don’t know what’s goin’ on” Twilight nodded.  

“I’m sorry…I ruined Winter Wrap Up” she said.

“Course ya didn’t….it just needs some fixin’ up is all. We’ll all be there to help so you won’t be alone. “Applejack said, “now,   why don’t ya tell me everythin’ that’s goin’ on”  Finally Twilight started explaining about Shining’s letter and all that happened afterward.  


	3. Evil Never Sleeps

       Shining Armor  hardly had time to himself.  He had been on three trips exploring the land around with royal guard ponies scoping out the area for shards of Sombra’s horn.  Stories and whispers still carried.  The Crystal Ponies had watched him-resentfully likely- as he left the borders of the empire.  Cadance watched him every time he left. The one time they had an argument- about how to deal with the dissenting ponies and their talking- and it was the longest and most agonizing wait.  She never thought an afternoon could feel like a week.

Lately she couldn’t explain her sudden moodiness.  Or why suddenly she would cry for no reason at all.  She hadn’t told Shining about the nightmares she had started having.  She started seeing horrible things in her dreams.  Cadance was the Princess of Love, and she had always been according to her Earth pony parents (before she became an alicorn) an affectionate filly who seemed to love everypony. She was never bright like Twilight and nothing special when it came to flying but she had her optimism.  

Now though it seemed like that was failing her.  She liked to believe that most ponies were good, but the things she had seen ponies do in her dreams were shaking that.  She wasn’t perfect and could understand dislike, but hate enough to plan to kill someone and to watch them die so coldly?  It was something she couldn’t understand.  But she had felt it as she watched through the eyes of a heartless unicorn as a client they had been working with died. All because he no longer wanted to work with her…and she just couldn’t let that happen.  Her entire self felt dirty after that dream and she tried to use the pillow to muffle her sobs.  She told Shining she had a dream about her parents’ deaths.  

She was running out of lies and explanations.  She felt bad because sometimes she snapped at somepony.  It made her wonder what kind of pony she was becoming.  

“Shining!”  She threw a leg around him as he came in and buried her face into him.

“Hey….” Shining said, “What’s wrong?””

“I’m fine “  she managed a shaky smile at him.  “I missed you….couldn’t stop thinking about our last words.”

“Hey  …don’t worry about that.  I was being too hasty.  I love you.” She nuzzled him and they broke apart.   They shared dinner privately and Cadance told him about everything that happened.   She started to list all the things she still had to do when Shining stopped her.  “Hey, I’ll take care of it why don’t you get some rest.” She nodded and exchanged a kiss.  She went to bed hoping tonight wouldn’t be another nightmare.  

She should have known she wouldn’t be so lucky.  

Her dreams took her to the Crystal Empire of old, more than a thousand years ago.  She could have almost felt her heart sink as she saw a certain grey unicorn in the Royal study.  Could it be…  The dream followed the young unicorn Lord’s son, Steelshoe watching the affairs of the palace.  It was flooded with corrupt nobles who only seemed to care about themselves.  The old Emporer and his wife weren’t bad per say, well intentioned but terrible leaders.   He had a few run ins with the Emporer’s daughter a sassy and sharp tongued young mare, who for whatever reason Steelshoe saw good in, an alicorn who hadn’t reached her coming of age yet.   Cadance had to admit that could have chemistry if given time and if the mare defrosted a bit.  

But it was never to be.  The young mare put her trust in the wrong person. She was close to a noble  who she believed respected her.  But the other mare’s ‘respect’ was out of ambition alone.  The moment things looked good she turned on the Emperor’s daughter and aired her secrets to a questionable source and wooed her betrothed.  Cadance could almost feel the sting of heartbreak listening to the tears her fellow princess (of sorts) cried.  She had lost love and her reputation all in one move. It made her cold, and she slowly locked out all her friends until she found the culprit.  

One night the Emperor’s daughter awoke and slipped out.  She went to a party and cornered the traitor-who denied the accusations and turned back accusations in spiteful insults back.  Cadance gasped as the royal mare took out a dagger and with her magic sent it flying for the noble’s heart.    

She barely had time to realize what she had done before a painful transformation seized her.  She screamed as a green slimy shell surrounded her.  A few other Crystal Pony nobles collapsed as well and were surrounded by green shells.  When the shell cracked a fearsome and familiar figure stood in the middle of the room.

Chrysalis, the Queen of the changelings.

       Other guests were grotesquely changed into changelings as well.  Everyone who had seen the act.  When other guests found them they were threatened out of the palace and Chrysalis was thrown in the dungeon.  She tearfully pleaded with her father at the trial.  She was banished.  Even Steelshoe wouldn’t meet her eye.

He had a fit of rage after the trial and thus began his downward spiral. He started studying dark magic.  He was preparing himself and his body to be able to kill without becoming a changeling himself. Chrysalis had showed him the price that a pony paid for such a heinous act. He got deeper and deeper, not noticing that such evil magic was twisting him.  Eventually it twisted him into a monster that Cadance knew all too well. Sombra.    

He took power by poisoning the Emperor and his wife.  His father had already died of old age leaving him one of the closest people to the throne.  Ponies that tried to stop him were killed horribly.  One had the skin flayed from his bones.  The nobles were the first to be punished under his regime.  The country soon went from being an empire to a totalitarian dictatorship.

Ponies that tried to oppose him met cruel fates.  Being publicly killed, tortured, or silenced with threats to their foals.  He was taken over by the same lust for power that consumed the nobles he so hated.  Soon some courageous ponies got together and knocked him off his throne.  They put a more stable ruler in place.  Sombra was exiled, but he would soon return to take back his kingdom.  

When he retook his thrown the rebels were punished along with their families.  The “imposter” who took his place got the cruelest treatment.  The stallion was publicly tortured and killed.  No one was allowed to speak his name unless cursing it.  The lower class and the class above it were made slaves.  It got bad enough the Celestia and Luna tried to intervene.  Sombra was weakened, but as his last act he closed off the Crystal Empire from the world.  It destroyed his physical body, but left his spirit…..lingering.  It would take a thousand years for the curse to weaken.  

Cadance was left sobbing and shaking.  It was a few minutes before she could feel Shining Armor stroking her, and more before she saw him standing over her with worried tears in his own eyes.  

******

Dai Toyaka had been watching his targets ever since he got to this sorry little inbred hick town that Stryke’s bastard kids lived in.  The Toyaka family was one of the oldest and proudest pure Psi families and the Stryke family had poked a dragon when they got themselves on Dmitri Akahata’s list.  What was it that started it?  Their head of household’s son supposedly killing Dmitri’s daughter in the 1650s?  Oh it was before that as legend goes.  Mason Stryke was dead the moment he said no to Dmitri’s favorite daughter.  

His aunt had that terribly annoying habit of being hell bent on getting exactly what she wanted, whether it was some man, the position of head of family, or the family business.  At first Dai found it admirable but as time went on, and the things Kagami wanted became bad for the family, it got annoying.  She wanted a Stryke and was set on getting exactly the right ones.  For reasons completely foreign to him she wanted the children of her ex husband.  It made no sense to Dai, she had killed the man for leaving her, and now she wanted possession of the kids he had by the other woman.  

The Strykes in Dai’s opinion-which might as well be declared proven fact anyway- were full of lowlifes.  The type of people who tried so hard and thought themselves quality people but in the end were only spineless self righteous hypocrites. He didn’t want them to grovel, he didn’t want them to serve him.

He wanted them all dead.

But Kagami, as the head of family and in her deluded old mind the sole voice of the Toyaka family’s good, kept them alive. She event took in one of their brats as her own!  Dai could do nothing to oppose her as he, a telepath was considered lower than most.  That was the Stryke’s fault too, if their ‘traditions’ hadn’t declared him a pariah, his father wouldn’t have turned his back the moment he knew what he was.  As if the voices flooding his head made him weak.  

He could hardly raise his voice against her.  Even his own family looked upon him as the sort who made the family look bad.  Dai had spent his afternoons simmering.  The annoying warnings of the matriarch’s son to control himself frayed his temper.   Dai’s skin had grown tough from all the times he struck a flame.  He had been so graciously allowed to take seizure of the Stryke patriarch’s home last fall.  Knock him and his woman off and bathe the place in flames.

He would have gotten farther were it not for the little redhead turning on the emergency sprinklers.  

_So_

_damn_

_close!_

Dai read his books to calm himself sometimes.  But it only made him angry that he couldn’t try any of the spells.  He was forbidden to touch the Stryke boys.  Well, he could probably get away with offing their cousin Felix.  But that wasn’t satisfying enough.  What he wanted was the forbidden fruit that hung right in front of him.  

The more Dai thought on it he had to admit that the Strykes being knocked off were what was best for the family.  The longer Kagami tried to keep them alive, the longer she was allowing their enemies a shot.  A shot to rob them of everything they had.

He fumed on this until after many drunken nights he came to a crazy decision.

He had to defy Kagami for the good of the family.  

He knew that she had something over the entire family; he suspected a magical failsafe over all of them that made it difficult to defy her.  Another example of how she had crossed lines over all of them to save her own skin.  Something to make it so it would be difficult-maddeningly so –to betray her.  

Seems like the old hag was getting paranoid with age.  

People in their family tended to go mad when they opened their mouths.  Dai could honestly say he was mad as all fuck but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take precautions.  He studied his magic texts and writing out his plans.  If he was going to do this for more reasons than just Kagami, he had to think about avoiding getting caught.  His hopes were answered when he found an interesting if challenging spell. The Banishment Curse.

It would banish the unfortunate victims to another realm on the other side of the gateway.  

Sciencey questions about other realms and gateways aside, it was perfect.  If he couldn’t kill the Strykes who distracted Kagami he could banish them to another world.  Strykes didn’t really belong in this world anyway.  As he made these plans, a horrible anxiety crept up on him.  He started thinking like a coward, what if he was caught, what if it didn’t work.

No.

This was for the good of the family.  He repeated it to himself over and over like a mantra.  It was what kept him sane.  

So now here he was watching the targets, forming ideas of their daily routines.  As he watched he mused on whether it would be a better idea to strike during the weekend or the week.  School could pose a challenge.

But on the other hand it could be an advantage.  After all it was the only time to get the annoyingly overprotective older brother away from the red headed little one.  He watched as little Timmy Stryke lingered outside his old home.  The home, from what he figured was where Elliot Sr. and his wife were killed.  His childhood home.  The boy lingered outside his dead parents’ home working up their courage to go in.  It was pathetic but worked out well.  

Dai returned ‘home’-that is some piece of rot apartment- with a six pack of beer and plans in his head.  As he drowned himself in booze he wrote down his plans.  

He needed to order out how he was going to do this.  

_Kagami’s little foundling Katsuya_

(Seriously, who with a brain honestly still believed that the brat was her kid?  Kagami may be a flirt but she gave it up to a select pool of people.)

_Elliott Stryke Jr_

(After the stunt he pulled at New Capula’s office he had to go.  He got too close. Not to mention Kagami’s obsession with him was sickening. She had sent her niece and nephew cross country to stalk him for fuck’s sake.)

_Timothy Stryke_

(You didn’t screw around with him without getting hurt…and that little zap he gave himself didn’t cut it.)

That was it for now.  It was best to play it safe and leave Felix as a meal for another day.  Three targets were enough to aim for.  Katsuya would be first since he was easiest.  The brat was at the beck and call of everyone in the family and so desperately wanted to prove himself as one of them.  But he never would.

Small town that it was, it didn’t take too long to get to the local hardware store to get some supplies.  Rope would be needed, and knives, and maybe a small pipe to knock out his prey. He was unsure how hard it would be to get his hands on chloroform and he didn’t want to risk getting Dex’s awareness.  

Dex, being Elliot Sr.’s oldest son could be a potential target, but he was lucky enough to be related to someone powerful.  But rest assured if the smartass kept nagging him he would find himself on a list very soon. Or with a snapped neck-Kagami be damned.

As he stood in the checkout line he watched everyone with a wary eye.  Every time someone looked his way he couldn’t help feeling that they were watching him.  He slammed the cash in front of the cashier.  

“House repair?”

“Huntin’ “Dai snorted, “got a pest problem around the house. “

“I see.”  The cashier took the money and quickly handed him money.  If Dai didn’t feel so eager to get out he would have yanked the harried man’s chain a little.  But he was on a schedule and he wanted to get away from so many prying eyes.  That night he drank himself to sleep.

“For the good of the family….for the good of the family”

Dai decided to start his plan as soon as possible for the sake of his own sanity.  In the time spent waiting he had written his mantra on the walls repeatedly. He went hunting for a location to do the deed, since he couldn’t very well be seen dragging bodies to his apartment building. He found-in the outskirts of town- a rundown old place, half burnt that no one used anymore.  Not a place he would make his permanent home – but surely a place fitting for what was technically a magical murder.  Once he set up the place he made the call to little Katsuya.  

It wasn’t hard to convince the brat to show up, telling him he had a special project for him.  It brought the fly right to the spider web.  

Katsuya met him by street sign down the road.  He wasn’t exactly tall for an eleven year old but Kagami and Dex claimed that was an advantage.  Kagami had tried to use her magic to make Katsuya appear to be one of them, but the glamour was fast fading.  His once pitch black hair had become a dark auburn.  Once he went full ginger again, the whole family would know where he came from, and whose twin brother he was.  The freckles were coming back as well.  Dai had to suppress a snort at what he was wearing. An oversized jacket with triple rolled cuffs, jeans, and two left shoes.  Intent on mothering as she was, Kagami might have done well to allow Katsuya to dress himself when he got old enough to.

“You put yer shoes on yourself today, did ya?”  he smirked.  The brat met him with a steely gaze.  

“You said you had a job for me.”  Katsuya’s idolization of Dex showed.  He spoke with the same formal sounding upper class accent the head of the family’s son had.  

“That’s right. Come with me I’ll tell ya about it when we get there.”  Katsuya’s discomfort as Dai put a hand around his shoulders did not go unnoticed.  Normally the rotten little brat threw an absolute tantrum at being touched by someone that wasn’t his teacher or his mother, but he knew not to pull that shit with him.  As he walked Dai lit himself a cigarette and watched his target squirming slightly in discomfort as he walked to the burnt old house hidden by woods.  

“Why-“

“It’ll all make sense soon” Dai said, “very glad ya showed up, I got somethin’ important fer ya”  It was funny how his eyes lit up excitedly even as he was being led to such  an obviously dangerous place.  He was desperate for their acceptance.

Bloody hell, kids were stupid. Even one so loaded up with book smarts and touted as a little prodigy.  

He made sure to lock the door behind him as Kat looked around the house trying to figure out what he would have in mind.  Dai let him wonder and question while he slowly unsheathed his weapon.  The moment when his back was turned-

WHACK

The sound of the boy hitting the ground was glorious.  The blow was enough to stun him so he could tie him up.  Dai used his foot to roll the body over to one side of the room.  He took a spare rag and placed it under the kid’s head.  He couldn’t afford a conviction after the Aarons bastard in 2002.   All that was left was to take the phone and destroy it.  

One down.

Now for the next one, the little Stryke empath.  Dai had a pretty good idea of how to reel in the twin.  Based on what he had heard and saw ,Timothy Stryke didn’t even know he had a twin, they hadn’t seen fit to tell him after Gilbert Stryke’s case went cold in ’98.  

Over the next few days Dai slipped into the old “murder house” and settled in the den.  He went rooting around gathering well hidden evidence of little Gil’s existence. An article, some photos.  The Strykes hadn’t had the heart to completely destroy evidence of their lost son. He had to work quickly before the boy came by again.  He left a light on in one room when he was ready.  He had a feeling that the kid would come in eventually.  Timmy proved he had more guts than anyone gave him credit for last November.  And he had to do this, to prove to himself that he could deal with it maybe.  Giving him a little signal might be the push he needed.  Not to mention something like a single light on would be hard to ignore, if he took after his twin as far as obsessive-compulsive ordering went.  

The gamble worked and after a frustratingly long hesitation, the boy entered the house.   The discomfort was obvious as he walked through the house.  Did the knowledge that his parents died here make him squirm? Obviously so.  Yet he still kept going.  The living room gave him the most difficulty; he started to leave when he noticed the distant glow in the den – the lamp Dai turned on.  

The boy was a perfect portrait of what Katsuya would have looked like if he grew up here.  Small and skinny, wavy unkempt ginger hair and freckles spattered everywhere.  Both were underweight, but by no fault of their guardians.  Electrokinetics burned so many calories so quickly that one would have to barely move and eat almost all waking hours to achieve even minor obesity.  His eyes were light brown and like Katsuya never made proper eye contact if they could help it.  The only major difference was that Timmy knew how to pick his own clothes.  

He hesitated by the door way but was soon pulled in.  Dai watched in the shadows as the boy walked over to the table, where he had arranged all the articles, photos, and proofs of the twin he never knew.   He was shaking and breathing hard as he looked at the pictures and read the article about how his brother was snatched by a stranger and never found. Declared dead after a year of searching because the authorities assumed that according to their profile the child would be dead within the first twenty four hours.  

“It’s cruel ain’t it?”  Dai slapped down the most current picture.  A dark haired young boy who had just gotten a trophy in the London Annual Mathematics Bee.  Timmy gasped and looked up.  

“You-!“

“Told ya this wasn’t the end of it” He smirked.  He circled the young boy who was now frozen in place by a bad case of the nerves.  “Your brother never told ya did he….a shame….what a person will do if they think it will protect a loved one.”  Timmy turned back to examining the picture of his twin. Dai took that moment to pull out the pipe in his sleeve and knocked the boy out.  

Two down.

He took a certain relish in making this one’s capture a little nastier.  Consider it his revenge for the boy’s defiance. He took care to wrap this one up in a rubber tarp to suppress any sparks.  He had picked up a truck found in a junkyard and hotwired it to work.  One man’s trash was another man’s treasure.  He drove the second victim to his little hide out and dropped him off, right next to his twin.  

Reunited at last.  

Now the older brother would be expecting him soon.  Dai recycled the articles to make an old fashioned ransom note, which he tacked on the door of the old Stryke house.  He had an advantage due to small town politics, the police chief was as redneck as they come, a small minded hick with secret ideas about white supremacy, who had his job purely on muscle and power.  His son and Skye Stryke had a messy history, and Dai could count on the ignorant moron not to do his job fully, and on the Stryke boy not to trust him.  He had left a little note in his ransom letter not to involve police.  This was a matter that ought to be settled between Psi.

Dai waited outside the house for a little while because he didn’t want anyone getting in the way.  But of course, as luck can’t last forever someone did.  A few passerby.  Dai got rid of them by making rustling sounds and imitating the sound of a mountain lion growling.  

They hurried their asses out of there on the double.  He moved the note to a place where nosy eyes wouldn’t be able to peek- folded and taped on the inside of the window.  The next person to come snooping was dear cousin Shiro.  

Shiro was the spawn of his good-for-nothing uncle, Toshiro.  The man wasn’t as bad as his father but still a pitiful waste of good oxygen.  Shiro’s mother was Elliott Sr’s estranged sister who thought she could leave her family behind by joining the enemy.  Their wedding, like Kagami’s marriage to Stryke was a mistake.  Dai had plenty of history with Shiro. The boy still resented Dai’s punishment for getting to close to a mundane and sharing secrets.  But he never made the same mistake again. Dai couldn’t scare Shiro away with a simple rustling and growling, you couldn’t easily fool one who could speak to the animals.  He also couldn’t risk Shiro running to Dex and tattling on him.

It was a hasty decision; Shiro had to go as well.  He was half Stryke after all.  He could justify this one as pruning the family tree’s diseased branches.  With careful movements Dai snuck up behind the kid and swung the pipe at the back of his head.

Shiro slumped forward to the ground and Dai started looting his body of any communication devices.  Earpeice, cellphone, and what the hell, iPod too.  He threw the earpiece at a rock and set the phone on fire, and then pocketed the iPod.  Maybe he could use the thing.  As he picked Shiro’s body up to load in the truck he noticed the kid’s glasses on the ground.

He wouldn’t need them where he was going.

_Crunch._

This meant he would have to work quicker.  

He drove the newest body back to his hiding place where he sat waiting.  Every now and then he would kick one of his captives to weaken them.  It shouldn’t take long.  Tomorrow at the latest.  He didn’t drink for fear of going to sleep.  He kept himself up by writing his mantra on the walls and drawing magic runes.  He didn’t even have to warn them to shut up.  The brats were naturally scared shitless and Shiro had always been a coward.  He could hear the teenager muttering obscenities sometimes.

“Keep it up……you’ll be barfin  yer brains”  That kept him quiet.  

After a whole night of being awake Dai found himself far jitterier and just a bit paranoid. He would peek out the door multiple times. In an anxious fit he stomped on Shiro’s nose multiple times for talking.

Then with a strange calmness he scooped up some of the blood and rubbed it in between his fingers.  He was acting for the good of the family.  He was doing the right thing. Dawn broke and he waited.

“He’ll come…don’t worry yer big brother will be with ya soon boys.”  

“Dex….”

“No, idiot” Dai leaned over and painted a rune on Kat’s cheek, using the blood Shiro had so kindly given him.  In a few moments Kat’s hair looked a lot lighter and his freckles faded into view.   “Meet your brother, Gilbert”  The two boys gaped at each other.  Katsuya started shaking and then made a lame attempt at a kick.

“STOP LOOKING AT ME!” He rolled over and curled up a bit, trying to cope with what he had just learned.  Dai chuckled to himself and went back to writing his runes.  He had advanced to writing his mantra in ancient runes.  

It was late morning by the time Skye arrived.  He burst in the room kicking open the door.  Behind him were the two mundane tagalongs Dex had mentioned.  Dex had tried to warn them, but it looks like they were all too damned thick.

Oh well….Muns were nothing to him.  They could go too.  Dai grinned and lit his hand on fire before lowering it near the ground where they stood.  

“Come to join the party?”

“I have the ransom” Skye shoved a bunch of wadded up hundred dollar bills in his direction.  Dai reached forward and burnt them to ashes.

“The ransom is _you_ ” He touched the ground by Skye’s feet starting a flame. “I’m fuckin’ rich, ya lousy hick.  What do I need money fer?” he lit another fire that cut off their exit.  

The only one who could get through that was a pyrokinetic and Dai was the only pyrokinetic for miles.  He unsheathed a knife and a pipe and went toward them. He knocked them all forward in the direction away from the fire and then stomped it out.  He twirled the pipe in his hands as he advanced on them.

“Now ….you can choose to be awake durin’ this but it will hurt more…a lot easier if I just put yeh to sleep.”  

*****

Anamaria Toyaka had a long night last night.  She had been tracking down the American Toyakas, most of which who were refugees and runaways who escaped Kagami’s abuse, or were immigrants from the Japanese branch.  The American Toyaka family was small as far as Psi families go, and not recognized as separate.  Most of the Psi community regarded them as family-abandoners.  

She had been working with a few of them in hopes to work together to destabilize the European branch.  But most of them considered it a suicide mission.  She finally accepted and started looking for a different route.  When she returned to her and her half brother’s temporary home at long last, she planned on sleeping all day.

That is…until she realized Shiro never came home.  She tried calling him, assuming he was spending the night with a girlfriend or some hook up but then he didn’t answer his phone the next morning.

Shiro never left his phone off that long.  

She got right into action after the third attempt, calling Dex and telling him everything.

“I know…. He was out looking at something for me-“

“WHAT?”  She rarely raised her voice, as it would shatter the useful façade of the fragile docile little girl the family thought she was.  She could imagine the way Dex was probably wincing at the moment.  

“I noticed something weird and told him to go check it out.  While you were away Timothy Stryke went to his childhood home and never came out. “Dex said.  Ana took a few breathes calming herself down.  “I haven’t seen Kat all yesterday afternoon.  And Elliott and his friends went somewhere and never came back.”  

“Where?” Ana demanded.  

“I can only assume they stopped at the Stryke’s former home.  The aunt is at the police department chewing the chief out, so they’re out of the way, and Felix has been job searching outside the town with Caleb. The last time they were in town was last Saturday.” Dex said, “The area is clear, I’ll meet you there.”

“If someone is targeting us then you should tell the others to hang back. “

“I have already.”

She called up a taxi to drive her into Banquo County and then went off like a guided missile towards the Stryke family house. She wondered why it hadn’t been torn down by now. Everyone in town knew what happened in that house and nobody would buy it anytime soon.  Shiro’s car,  sure enough, was still sitting near the front of the neighborhood.  Dex was waiting nearby for her.  

“If they just snatched him they might have traveled on foot. “

“Or they were lurking by the house.  There’s a clearing behind the house. “Dex led the way to it.  

“Do you have any suspicions?”  Anamaria asked. “The Psi police?”  She had been able to restrain herself before but she found herself being more panicked.  There was a part of her that liked it in a twisted way,  it was proof that she wasn’t as detached as she had always felt.  Being so distant from others, hiding behind masks were good for protecting her from suspicion and from hurt growing up with a woman who didn’t want her, and a father who didn’t want any of them.  She had learned to shut off the part of her that was wounded by silly things like insults.  One of her teachers , her best ,was the one who saw through her sniffling and fake tears , who had diagnosed her as a cold young woman.  But after awhile, being so detached made her feel not quite human.  

The fact that she was scared meant that she really did love Shiro.  At least she loved somebody.

“I don’t think so.”  Dex shook his head.  “It’s quick and hasty.  The Psi Police are far too experienced for such sloppy rush jobs. Whoever did this is scared.”

“They should be.”  They found the house, doors open, and basement window open.  A search through the house only turned up one disturbing thing . A strange display-somewhat reminiscent of a shrine to Dex’s student Katsuya-or who he had been, Gilbert Stryke.

“…..Maybe the person who kidnapped the child originally…” Ana scanned an article with pieces cut out.  

“That’s impossible” Dex said softly. “….Mother is all the way in London.”  Anamaria turned staring at him in horror as he leaned to pick up a photograph. He showed it to her.

“Does this look familiar?”

“Kat…..”

“Yes.  I lived here when it happened.  She had been preparing some sort of revenge for my father.” Anamaria opened her mouth but hardly any sound came out.

“I’m sorry.”  

“Don’t be.  I was horrible. Now let’s go…I might have an idea.”  She quickly got up and followed, wondering what Dex made of this.  As she followed she noticed his messily fastened ponytail which stuck out from his normally neat appearance.  He was far more worried that he was acknowledging or letting on.  Outside near the back of the house was a letter on the ground.  It was done in classic ransom style with pieces from the very article in the display.

Dex took it and looked over it.  In a few moments he crumpled it and threw it to the ground in a sudden fit of rage.  He was breathing loudly now.

“….what?”

“It’s an inside job!” It took a few moments for her to comprehend what that meant.

“ _Someone in our family did this!_ ”  He barked at her, “Now damn it let’s go already.”  

She had to work to catch up with him.  He ran back to the car and hastily got in scrambling to get it started.  She got in quickly.  She wasn’t frightened of Dex when he was in such a state but rather for what he might do. In the past his temper had caused serious damage.  Her brother’s eye injury, and more recently, the wound in Skye’s shoulder had both been caused by Dex’s uncontrollable temper. Finally she found her voice to tell him to slow down before he got them both killed.  

They drove to outside the borders of the town.  A sleek black Aston Martin Vanquish seemed jarringly out of place in the woodsy West Virginia boondocks.  

“He’d want to stay out of sight. His house would be too obvious.”

“He?  You sure?”

“It’s Dai.” Dex spat his name.  “He’s gone too far….I should have known that he was up to something.  He should have never left the Institution.” She found herself shaking and, betraying more emotion that she had ever shown since she was a young girl.  They stopped outside a woods area. “Come on, I smell smoke.”  The closer they got, the stronger the smell of smoke was.  Smoke and a sickeningly sweet metallic smell.

It surrounded a house that was partially burnt and had burn marks around the front entrance.  The windows were boarded up.  Dex approached the door and kicked it down.

The sight before them was one that would haunt them for as long as they lived.

There was a magic circle drawn on the floor in dark red and several figures laid together in the middle of the floor. Dai stood above them with blood soaked hands.  Anamaria heard herself screaming before all went to black.

“What the hell are you doing?” Dex yelled.  

“Just trimming the family tree” Dai said. He took out his pipe and lunged toward Dex.  The struggle only took a few moments before the Toyaka head’s son and Shiro’s half sister were lying among the victims.  Dai took the pistol off Dex’s body and tossed it out the door.  

If anyone was near the woods they would see a dim light and hear a singular crack of thunder that seemed to come from nowhere.

 

*******

 

Celestia and Luna waited to hear from Cadance about anything strange after a letter from Shining Armor about dissent among the Crystal Ponies.  Cadance sent a letter asking how to deal with it.  Luna was extremely restless.  She was unable to enter Cadance’s dreams, and wished to find a way to contact her. Not by letters that could end up in the wrong hands as evidence that the Princess was going mad.  

She tried many times to enter Cadance’s dreams, not being one to give up easily.  But it was no avail.  She was thrown out repeatedly.  She decided then to send a message to Shining Armor.  

He saw himself being put on trial and decried as a tyrant by the Crystal ponies.  Her heart bled for him, she too understood the feeling that people were turning on her.  She approached him in the middle of the courtroom and the surroundings all bled away.  

Normally she didn’t do this, for she had learned through experience that she had to let ponies face their own fears.  Her intrusions had in the past left a few too many fillies and colts to learn about facing fears the hard way.  But in this case she had an urgent message to send.

“P-princess” Shining Armor still shook in her presence.  

‘Do not be afraid.  We come to thee with no judgement.”  She said, “I wish to send along a warning to your wife.  I am unable to enter her dreams.”  

“Cadance?”  Shining Armor asked.

“Your wife is going through something that will be difficult for her to endure.  As an Alicorn she is coming of age.”  He looked worried and puzzled.

“Coming of age…but she’s twenty-“

“As an Alicorn.  She has achieved so many years in her life as an Alicorn that it is time for her to shoulder the burden that all of us share-“

“But why?  “ She looked at him, calmly with a hint of sadness in her voice.

“Because it is something all of us must go through.  I went through it and ill prepared as I was, I made many mistakes.  I wish to spare her the pain I went through. Please tell her that she can turn to us for advice and help when she needs it.”  Shining looked to her now as worried as she was.

“..But what is she going through?” Luna bowed her head.

“It is something I cannot fully tell you.  But I will say this; she is no longer a child and will gain a knowledge that is great and terrible.”  She turned to leave when she thought of something.  “….and Shining Armor.  Do not doubt yourself.  You are not a tyrant; you are a most noble leader.  You proved that, years ago as the Captain of the Guard” With those words she left him.  She did not bother with the Royal Speech beyond her greeting.  It was imperative that Shining Armor fully understand her message for Cadance’s sake.

She returned to her home with just enough power to lower the moon for the night.  After that she found her bed and collapsed.  She fell quickly into sleep and into dreaming.  

It was the night before the wedding and Luna and Celestia were celebrating Cadance’s getting married.  It was reassuring to see Cady happy and in such good spirits.  But out of nowhere a familiar dark mane swept by and grabbed her, cackling wickedly.  Nightmare Moon flew into the sky holding Cadance up.  

“You will pay for your betrayal, you foal” she sneered to Luna. She and Celestia both fired their magic at Nightmare Moon who moved out of the way laughing.  “There is no escape from me.” The words echoed until Luna woke up in a cold sweat.

“CELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYY!!”


	4. Diplomatic Disaster

Whispers spread throughout the Crystal Ponies in the days that passed. Every new law that was past, the Prince insisted was for their safety but things like curfews and laws regulating leaving the country were grating on the nerves of many ponies.  Talk of a forceful takeover used to be a thing that only the conspiracy nuts would talk about, but soon even the most reasonable ponies were starting to consider it.  

“But Equestria has only ever helped us” Crystal Petal, one of the local shop ponies pointed out to her friend.

“Yeah, sure, but right now they’re helping us right into another dictatorship.”  Amber Swirls was a stubborn mare.  Crystal suspected that some of her friends, or perhaps their former teacher whom Amber had a crush on had influenced her.  For the rest of the day Crystal heard her customers buzzing about the Princess and Prince and Equestria.  She had to ask a very charismatic, but also very persistent stallion who was pushing flyers for some Royal Resistance meeting.

“You’ll be one of the first to bow down to the new Sombra.”  He told her coldly.

“Do I have to get someone to escort you ou-…” but he was gone in a blink.   Odd.  

Very few crystal ponies were capable of teleportation magic, due to many of the remaining Crystal Ponies being earth ponies.  Few liked to talk about it, but during Sombra’s rule, many crystal unicorns and pegasi were driven out or put to death.  Sombra had been threatened by them and he had kept the unicorns close by him and executed the ones he couldn’t control, while making many rules against the crystal pegasi and drove many of them out.

The Crystal Empire had been a bit behind the times on racial tolerance and still had problems with tension between unicorns, pegasi and earth ponies.  Sombra exploited that when he took over.  He believed that Earth Ponies were most useful for working, while unicorns like him were better, and he believed that pegasi with their cloud cities were disloyal by nature.  However, his favoritism of his own race could only be rivaled with his paranoid need to be the strongest unicorn in existence.  Many of the Crystal Empire’s civilian unicorns would disappear into the night and were never seen again.  The crystal unicorns in his circle were not spared either, as Sombra would often get it in his head that one of them was out to get him, and of course that unfortunate pony would be gone in a week.

Many crystal ponies didn’t talk about crystal pegasi; part of their reason for avoidance was guilt, because Sombra had used the populace and their prejudices to drive the crystal pegasi away from their kingdom.  

Crystal Petal went on with her day trying not to think about that strange stallion.  At closing time she started on her way home.  As she went on her way, she noticed another pony; a mare was passing out fliers and shouting about the ‘Equestrian takeover’.

“This kind of safety laws are the beginning of a tyrants rise to power…first they say it’s for your own good…then “for your own good” slowly becomes for MY good”  she called out.  As Crystal Petal passed the castle she looked up to it, to the Balcony where Prince Shining Armor had stood when they were fighting Sombra.  

“I want to believe in you” she thought, “Please …please don’t make me a liar.”

*****

Shining Armor had not been this nervous since preparing for his wedding to Cadence.  Of course the wedding had been more of a good king of apprehension, because deep down, he knew that Cadence loved him.  Right now he couldn’t be sure what the Crystal Ponies thought of him. From what he had seen in the papers a lot lately, it was starting to feel more and more like they hated him. Everything he did was turned into an act of oppression.  Not to mention there was Cadences nightmares to worry about. He had to make sure she ate enough and got sleep. Not even the time that she had to stay up for days casting a protection spell was as bad as this.

“Maybe” he thought, “if I tell them that it’s temporary they’ll calm down”

‘But then,’ a voice in the back of his head said, ‘they’ll think that getting angry and making demands works.  You can’t let your own subjects control you.’  He shook his head. “That was nonsense” he told it, “the ponies of the Crystal Empire are reasonable.” He tried to remember what Princess Luna had told him.  She had faith in him and he wasn’t going to let her down.  

One of the Royal Attendants poked in his room.

“Your majesty, the Opal Missionary Cen-….. sir ,is everything all right?”  Shining Armor looked up from the floor he had been mindlessly staring at as he paced.  

“Y-yes.  I am fine.”  He said, “What about the Opal Missionary Center want?”  he said.  

“You look ill….sir.”the attendant asked.  

“I’m fine.  The Missionary Center?”

“O-oh, they were requesting permission for the border guard to allow them out?”  Shining sighed.  The entire country had been on heavy guard since a suspicious sighting weeks ago.  Royal Gaurds had come to him swearing they saw a dark stallion outside the kingdom, in possession of Sombra’s horn.   At first he was ready to dismiss such a ludicrous claim.  There had been a lot of drinking when celebrating the announcement that the Crystal Empire would host the Games.  But Cadence had been advised by the Princesses to at least look into it.  So they started looking for proof that the horn had shattered.  

Celestia had warned them that the horn of Sombra could still be used by a pony with ill intent. It boggled Shining Armor to think about.  How desperate-and sick-would a pony have to be to use the disembodied horn of a unicorn, especially one who had done so many terrible things with it?

“…Can you ask them to wait a little?  I’m sure witnessing to the Griffins can wait until we find what we’re looking for.”  He said.  He hoped they would find the shards soon so he could let down all the precautionary rules.  

“I will. “  The stallion nodded and began to leave.  Before he could turn away Shining called out.

“Wait…!  One more message I need you to send. Tell the Committee that I’ll be holding a press conference tomorrow to address …er concerns that the Crystal Ponies have.”  

And that was how he got himself into that mess.  Now he stood before his citizens faced with many members of the press waiting to hear what he had to say.  Candence’s warning the previous night rung in his mind.

“They’re scared, Shining.  Sombra did a lot of horrible things to them. It’s not that they’re ungrateful  to Equestria,  but they’re paranoid about having a ruler again now that they’re free from the curse Sombra put on them. Try to remember that”  

He noticed a bit of muttering, and whispers throughout the crowd.  He cleared his throat and with a deep breath started the conference.  It went well at the beginning, as he explained that the increased guards, curfew and restrictions on wandering outside the borders were a precautionary and temporary measure.

“I know it seems harsh but, it won’t last forever, just until we’re finished following up on a …er…” How to phrase this without worrying them, “security concern.” That brought on a barrage of questions about what it was. “I-it’s just a precaution.”  He didn’t want to make them feel like Sombra was a threat if he wasn’t certain.

That was when things went south.  While a few members of the press tried to ask him more about the threat some others in the crowd started muttering.

“If it’s just a precaution, surely there wouldn’t be any harm in telling us what it is.”  Snapflash, a tabloid reporter spoke up.  “Or…maybe that’s because there isn’t a threat at all.”   He was a scrawny stallion although looked as if he took care of his appearance very well.  He wore a wide brimmed hat that went well with ‘snappy’ outfits clashing with his khaki pocketed vest, which proudly bore a few pins proclaiming his cynical opinions about everything from history to the Princesses’s rule.  Snap was known for being obnoxiously outspoken and mouthy, and having some very anti Equestria sentiments.   He had been rather unpopular only months before during Twilight and her friends fighting Sombra.  

“There is” Shining Armor said, “I mean…there is a reason for us to be investigating.” A wide grin spread across the reporter’s face, and Shining started to get a bad feeling.  He didn’t doubt that Snap was itching for an ‘I told you so’ against all the ponies who mocked his beliefs and dismissed him as being prejudiced against Equestria.  

“Oh is that so…..then…you mind telling us what it is, your royal highness?”  Shining Armor shuffled through his papers as a few ponies scoffed.

“Give it a rest, Snap” one mare said, “This is a serious press conference, not a place to talk about your conspiracy theories.”  

“So you don’t care about what our leaders are spending so much time trying to protect us from” Snap asked feigning innocence.  The reporter mare balked, stammering a quick retort.  

“I’m interested in the answer to this actually.”  

“As am I” There were mutters throughout the crowd and Shining Armor was sweating now.  At the beginning of this investigation he had been warned against letting the citizens know about the suspicions regarding Sombra’s horn.  He gulped and looked through his papers again trying to think of a good answer.

“Well….there’s just been a sighting of a possible threat” he started. Snap snorted loudly.

“A possible threat! Right!” he said.  “And have you seen this mysterious threat?  Or is it just a shadow to distract us while you set up your own empire, Prince Shining Armor?” This was getting bad.   Before Shining Armor could say something Snap continued, while many others watched in shock. “Clearly the Equestrian government thinks we’re idiots who can be distracted by shiny objects.  Put up a fake warning of a threat and give the illusion of doing something while you put up a bunch of rules to control us.”

“That’s not true” Shining Armor said. “The Royal Guard identified a possible threat to the country, and we’ve been investigating to get to the bottom of it!”

“Really?”  Snap asked.  “And can the guard confirm this?”  Shining Armor felt his throat go dry.  The Royal Guards were under strict orders to keep the suspicions quiet. Shining couldn’t ask them to go against their orders just to save his own face.  This meant he would have to do this himself. He was starting to get the feeling he couldn’t do this. “They can’t can they? “

“Well…” he started, “That is a difficult-“

“Difficult?  I see.  Maybe I’m being too hard on you, Prince.  You’re just following orders from above.  A loyal little puppet for the oh-so-good Princesses of your country to take over ours.”  

“Need I remind you that if it weren’t for Equestria your country would still be imprisoned by Sombra!” Shining Armor snapped.  As soon as he said those words, he regretted them.  There was an audible gasp from the crowd and whispers started spreading like wildfire.  Snapflash had goaded him into losing his temper.  The stallion had huge “I told you so” smirk on his face.

Shining Armor tried to apologize, to say that didn’t come out right, but it was too late.  

He was done for in the eyes of the Crystal Ponies.

 

*****

 

Chrysalis watched from a distance as the Press Conference went down.  She had a few spies there posing as reporters or civilians.  Shining Armor gave his speech and Chrysalis didn’t need to see him closely to tell how nervous he was.  She had spent a good month and a half with him and had started to get an understanding of the noble but humble ex-Captain of the Guard. There was a part of her who had enjoyed her brief pseudo-romance with him (she had an upper hand over him, that always helped).  He was an interesting pony, very full of delicious emotions.  She was surprised that he never found out that she wasn’t his love, not because of stupidity; no Shining Armor had a very bright, strategic mind when he wanted to, but faith in Cadence.  Faith that came of his love for her.  Love had a funny way of making ponies very foolish.  Chrysalis could have sucked him dry before he started to suspect had the real Cadence not come along.

That had caused a puzzle that had nagged at the back of the Queen’s mind.  What was it about love that made ponies so willing to give up their wits and put themselves in the way of hurt?  Contrary to what people believed Chrysalis wasn’t a loveless heartless creature, she did have love, for her subjects and for herself. But she was cynical enough to not let love get in the way of things.  She had been hurt far too many times in the past for that.  

As she watched she noticed that it wasn’t one of her changelings that managed to goad Shining Armor into snapping, but one of the Crystal Ponies. He managed to play on Shining’s loyalty to his Princesses Very impressive.  She made a mental note of that particular stallion.  Perhaps he could be useful. She heard a couple of her children approach.  

“Switch…….I have a job for you.”  

“Yes, your highness?”  

“Pose yourself as a royal attendant and keep an eye on Prince Shiny and his wife, would you? Report to me only when the coast is clear.  I need you to stay there and be trusted until you get other orders.”  

“Yes ma’am!”  The changeling nodded, saluted her and took off.  Chrysalis watched him as he took his disguise and slipped in and then she returned to the hive. Now all she had to do is wait.  

*****

“There are children missing, you idiot! _Children!_ ” Marina Finn was starting to wish that she could just throttle the blustering man and be done with it.  She had come to him after her nephew left with his friends to go looking for his brother and hadn’t come back after two hours.  Banquo County wasn’t that big and she couldn’t imagine where they might be.  Timmy was probably the only one who knew his way around some of the back woods of the area.  He would sometimes retreat to the woods when he was overloaded or couldn’t deal with some strange thing that had seemed to plague him since he was old enough to start kindergarten.  

When Skye returned to her three months ago , he had given her an unexpected explanation of what it was.  Empathy, as in actual “feel your tears, feel your pain” empathy.  Marina had learned that Skye was a telekinetic shortly after Melanie and Elliott Stryke’s death.  It shocked her a bit, but in the long run it made a lot of sense. Timmy, he said, had been plague by empathy apparently since he was about four, but had not told anyone because once in their childhood the boys had been introduced to some of the Psi community at a meet up in New York. Some of them had said unkind things about empaths.  While the two boys were in England, they had learned more about the Psi community’s attitude towards strange powers like telepathy and empathy and none of it was any more pleasant.

“They haven’t even been gone for a full 24 hours. They aren’t missin’ yet.” Chief Ipisky said, “and It’s Chief to you, ma’am”  

“Don’t talk down to me,  Jack. “ Marina said, “You know, I whipped your ass in high school.”  She had known the man growing up, and he hasn’t seemed to have changed since then. Jack always treated her with chauvinistic condescension, which motivated her to try and show him up at anything she could whether it be sports, track or shooting. She had even tried to go into law enforcement herself before finding out that he got the position as chief, set to set back this town a good fifty years.   Jack Ipisky and his son were the sort of people you’d expect to be living in the boondocks proudly displaying a Confederate flag.  They probably would have if Jack didn’t have such a shining reputation.

“If you don’t watch your mouth, you’ll be in trouble with the county.”  Marina rolled her eyes.

“if you don’t do your job you might be too.”

“Are you aware, Miss Finn, what your nephew has been pullin’ since he was in grade school? He’s been tellin’ tall tales and shooting off his mouth to any one he wants.  He got kicked out of VBS for freaking out other kids, and kicked off the soccer team-”

“Skye quit the soccer team. It was your son who got kicked off ,if I remember correctly ,for hangin’ around with punks and beating a kid up.” Ipisky had nothing he could say to that.

“How do you know the little one didn’t just run away?” he said. He had something of a point there.  When the boys returned from living in the UK with their grandparents after some incident neither would talk about much, Marina’s parents had taken the younger son, while refusing to take Skye.  They were convinced that whatever happened in England had to be Skye’s fault, and thought he was becoming a bad influence on his younger and milder brother. It was difficult for both of the kids, but her parents, stubborn as they were would never listen to her. She was the disappointment.  They were still fonder of Melanie, even though she had married a man they hated.  

“If Timmy ran away he would have come to me and his brother first” Marina said. “So, because of a fight your kid had with Skye, you’re not going to lift a finger. Is that it?”  Ipisky just sighed and went back to his desk.

“Come back to me when he they can be officially classed as missing. They’ll probably come back by tonight. “Marina sighed and shook her head. She didn’t bother saying anything more to the man.  As she left one of the other police officers nodded to her.

“I’m sorry ‘bout your boys, miss” he said. She managed a small half-smile in spite of her anger and disappointment.

“They were hers first,” It went without saying how much it meant to her.”It’s my job to look out for ‘em. But thanks, though.  Glad someone cares.”  For once in her life, Marina hoped that Jack Ipisky was right, that they would come home this afternoon, with Skye’s little brother in tow, like nothing happened.  When she left the police station she was met by Theresa and Duane.  Had they heard and come to help or…

“We haven’t heard from either Russell or Gem for hours.” Damn.  Marina took a deep breath to calm herself.  So, Skye brought his friends along, great.  

“They’re probably with him.”  She said.  She saw her father’s care driving up to the station and groaned inwardly as they got out.  She didn’t look forward to facing their ire. Before they could say anything, Duane Tekton spoke up.

“We’re starting a search party to find your grandson.” He said. Sure enough her father still had to take her aside to voice their displeasure.

“You do realize that after this is all sorted out, Timothy will be going to private school.”

“Yeah, you don’t think that will push him away more?” Marina said, “He’ll hate it. He already gets picked on at school-“

“We know what is best for him!”

“Well, I know him” she said. More than they knew.  She feared what they would do when they learned that Timmy wasn’t as ‘normal’ as they thought he was.  Skye had also told her that. While they were with their father’s parents Timmy’s actual power had developed.  She left them and went to start organizing a community search with the Tektons, and maybe try and call up Caleb Tekton and Felix Stryke.   The Tektons promised to spread the word as much as they could.  

They were good on their word.  By two-o clock that afternoon a sizable group of people had gathered together at the Tekton’s house. Marina noticed Caleb and Felix there with a brown haired girl in a long coat.  Felix had come home with Skye, apparently having been given instructions by his late paternal grandfather to keep an eye on Skye.   Felix had been hunting for a job since he got here.  Marina hadn’t exactly understood what Felix and Skye tried to explain about their grandfather being the head of the entire family or how that worked.  All she knew was that sometime last December she got a call from the last person she expected, the estranged son of her brother in law.  He said they would be coming back and they would be in a lot of danger and needed her.  After hearing the boys’ story she started to understand.  She was furious to learn that the new head of household disinherited the three, and had half a mind to call the man up and demand an explanation.  The disinheritance was why Felix and Caleb had been searching for a job.  Because somebody at the police station had brushed them away with an excuse not to hire.

Marina hurried over to Felix, mouthing “where have you been” as she heard him say “who’s all this about.”  

“Your cousin!” she said, “You know the boy you were told to look out for?”  Honestly, she thought, sometimes he could be sharp but other times…’What an IDIOT’.  He stared at her looking stricken.

“…he didn’t tell me anything” Felix said.  Marina found herself slowing down at that news. For a moment she felt guilty throwing those words in Felix’s face.

“Wait….he didn’t?”

“No….I would have been over right away.”

“Timmy has been missing since yesterday. “She said.  “Skye went to find him yesterday, now he and his friends missing.”   The parents of the missing kids went around and showed everyone what the kids looked like and what they answered to.  Marina’s annoyance was now shifted to Skye.  Once she found him she would be having words with him.  Skye was a very solitary type of person, and tended to want to do everything alone.  He had only recently gotten close to his best friends.  She didn’t know how close he was to Felix, but was shocked he didn’t tell him. She, along with many other adults, took off in various directions as the sky began to darken.

“Please be safe…please be okay.” She joined in the echo of many voices calling out names. “Timmy!  Skye!  Rusty!  Gem…Shout if you can hear me!” No voices shouted back…nor would they for any of the searchers.  


	5. Things One Must Do To Survive

It was dark, and all Dex Toyaka could remember was fear and pain.  The sound of the loud crack still reverberated in his ears. All he could think was “when will it be over” until, finally it all seemed to end and he stopped …stopped existing.

At least that’s what it that gap had felt like.  His memories briefly flashed through his eyes just like people said it did when you die.  But then, who knew how long afterward, suddenly he was alive again, and his senses all turned back on.  He was aware of being out…gone…or something for an amount of time.  The feeling of something cold stung parts of his body as he slowly drifted out of sleep and into waking.

He was running through the last moments in his mind trying to pinpoint where exactly things had gone south with Dai.  At what point was the lunatic planning out their fates?  What could he have done, what could he have noticed to stop all this?  What was most frustrating was that he couldn’t pin point exactly what he should have done. It was like a frustrating puzzle he couldn’t figure, like the word on the tip of his tongue he couldn’t find, and even hindsight would have been maybe a small comfort. All he was sure of was that he should have never allowed Dai to leave the Institution for the Criminally Insane in the first place.  

Cursing under his breath he shifted and the sting of cold became intolerable, enough to make him open his eyes.  The first thing he saw was green and white.  Snow.  He pulled himself up and stretched.  The sky was dark, likely the middle of the night.   Snowy hills and bare trees could be seen, with a small town just visible over the horizon. The town had an odd, fairy tale-esque , early German look to the architecture, complete with wooden houses and a windmill.  

His vision was obscured by some strands of black hair hanging and something white in both corners of his eyes. It started to irritate him and he shook his face trying to get the white thing out of the way.  There was a voice behind him, all of the sudden (perhaps just quiet until now) and it was chuckling.

“What’s the matter?  Trying to shake off your face? It doesn’t look that bad,” Dex stiffened.

“Who’s there?” he called out.  

“Over heeeeere” _Pop_ “No over here!” _Pop_   “Whoopsie, over here now”  Dex continued turning and  looking around until he tripped over something. He looked down at what was in his way and gasped.  A brown leg of some sort of animal stood in his way.  Two white things, connected to him were sprawled in front of him.

Legs with hooves at the end.

_Hooves._

He pulled himself up and looked down at himself, slowly raising one hoof up awkwardly until he felt pain.  His legs weren’t supposed to go quite that high.  He examined one hoof  in shock.  Suddenly he realized what the white thing in the corners of his eyes was.  His snout. He brushed some of the snow off of the figure he tripped over.  It was a brown equine being with a copper mane that resembled the hairstyle of one of his brother’s mundane friends. Next to him was another one, a female whose body was light purple, and whose mane was pink and yellow.  

_They had been changed into small horses._

“Never seen a pony before?”  Dex turned around to be faced with an even stranger sight.  Some sort of serpent with a number of mix and matched parts.  It was looking at him with amusement.  

“What is this place?” The being laughed and reached out to poke something on his head sending a wave of unexpected aches to his head.

“Specifically?  In the middle of nowhere just outside of Ponyville.  Why so aggressive?” Dex moved back and rubbed his head with one hoof.

“Who are you?”  The creature moved backward and gave an exaggerated bow.

“I am Discord, your friendly neighborhood Chaos Master.”

“….friendly….chaos master?”  Dex repeated eyeing him with disbelief.  

“Yes…is that really so hard to believe?”  Discord huffed and looked at him hands on…well some middle part of his body that might have been his hips.  Dex looked at him with skepticism “Allright if we’re going to play that way who exactly are you?  And what are you and your buddies doing sleeping out in the middle of nowhere.” Dex said nothing, not trusting a creature who called themselves the Master of Chaos.  “Oh….that’s how it is….” Discord drew close wrapping his tail around him, surrounding him, “How about a game of twenty questions? First….are you a stallion or a mare….I really can’t tell….what with that mane style you have going on…”

Dex gritted his teeth and felt a surge of something from the thing on his head as he felt his temper heat up.

“Ooh did I hit a nerve?”  He had to be careful….if he let his anger get the best of him something bad might happen. He wasn’t going to allow an accident to happen over something so petty.

“I don’t have time for this.” Dex said. He turned around and started checking on the others.  He carefully brushed the snow off of them so that they wouldn’t freeze to death.  He could feel Discord watching him and attempting to ask a few more questions before getting bored. Making sure the younger victims were okay was more important.  He heard the sound of a pop behind him.   As he attended to the kids he noticed small things, like the differences in appendages.  Elliott- Skye seemed to have a horn like he did, as did Anamaria.  Shiro had wings, one of which was bent in an unusual way.  He tried to adjust the wing just a bit so it wouldn’t get bent further.  He thought about what he would do.  On the one hand…now that they were stuck in this unfamiliar world he should keep eyes on them now more than ever.  But his record with his half brother was far from clean.  In the previous years  it had gained two more bleak spots on it, not only had Dex as an angry , and stupid teenager, been a bully , Skye also believed that Dex had been responsible for the death of his parents and in a test Dex had held his friends as collateral. It gave him an opportunity to test the loyalty of the two mundane teenagers.

Dex had not approved of his mother’s actions regarding her ex-husband, nor had he wanted to take the credit for soliciting their deaths.  His anger at his father didn’t go that deep anymore, since he started to learn the complexities of his situation.  He was starting to realize that considering the obvious power difference between the two, and his mother’s disregard towards the concept of morals, that she might have done something to hoodwink his father into stay with her.  The way his father had needed to take up drinking again just to survive Dex being there…that said it all.  

When Dex found out that Skye had become aware of the Psi community and his father’s family he was petrified.  He knew it would only be a matter of time before Skye and his little brother were pulled into his mother’s madness, like Kat had already been.  Skye made things harder by trying to investigate his family, and get to the bottom of whatever they were doing, Dex didn’t see any reason to stop him, but he had to make sure Skye would be able to handle what he did find.  Dex’s attempt at testing him had ended poorly, although he did get Skye to stand up against him in spite of his fear, the night ended in Skye almost being killed by Dex’s own hand. What Skye said had hit a nerve.  

_“You think you can blame this on me?  At the end of the day you’ll know you killed them no matter what I said or did.  You can never tell yourself you’re not a murderer.”_

Dex shoved the thoughts aside. There was too much bleak history between them for anything good to come of him being near.  Especially seeing as now he was suddenly in possession of a magical appendage.  He decided that, before he left he would at least make sure that they would survive.  He got all of the snow off of Skye and his little brother. Very carefully he moved the younger child over to his older brother with careful nudging and precise movements.  Dex was reluctant to use magic lest he harm one of them.  He didn’t trust magic.  As he maneuvered the child close to his brother’s body heat he heard a shift in the snow.

His heart nearly skipped a beat as he noticed the child’s twin, his ‘student’ Kat come to and start to panic.  

“SHHH!”  He went over and put a hoof near Kat’s mouth.  “Don’t wake them up.”  Kat had wings like his brother, as well as light freckles.  The only visual difference between the two was Kat’s mane was a little shorter in the front and straighter and was a bit of a darker red compared to Timothy’s pure orange.  It seemed whatever force brought them there and changed them recognized that they were identical twins.  Kat obeyed taking a few moments to look at his new body again.

“What…. the hell HAPPENED to me?”  He replied in a loud whisper, “What happened to _you_?”

“Transformation I’m assuming.” Dex said, “I don’t pretend to know what blood magic can do.”  He spoke of it with obvious dripping disdain for the idea.  

“Oh….” Kat said.  He gave an awkward flap of one wing.  Dex continued checking the kids individually. He noted that many of them had a mark on their hind-side. The only ones who didn’t have it were the twins and the mundane girl, Skye’s friend.  Strange.  “Are you going to stay?”  Dex looked up. There was a pleading note in Kat’s voice.  

“No…I can’t.  Elliott and I …both having magic, it would only mean trouble.”  He looked at the light blue unicorn.  Kat looked down, crushed.  

“I-I want to go with you,” he said. Dex was about to say ‘no’ “I don’t belong here, with them, damnit! You know that. Just because I look like his brother doesn’t mean he’ll accept me….I’m still on the enemy side. “   Dex sighed looking over him.  He knew Skye was protective of his family but the matter of Kat was complicated.  None of it was Kat’s fault either. Some of it was his fault, because as a teenager he hadn’t had the courage to stand against his mother when she started taking things too far.

“Fine…on one condition....when I tell you do to do something for your own safety, you do it” he said, “If I tell you to run for cover and leave me, you’d best do it”

“Yes.  I understand.”

“Good…now we’re going to need to bring them closer to the town so someone will find them.”  Dex said.  

“But how can we do that without waking them up?” Kat said.  Dex bit his lip looking at the unconscious kids.  Kat had a good point.  He looked around studying his surroundings.  He noticed the forest to one side of them.  

“You stay here and keep watch ….I’ll go and see if I can find some wood.”Kat looked back towards the others uncertainly.

“What if one of them wakes up?”

“I don’t think they will….even if they do, you’re a child, if I know one thing about my brother he wouldn’t hurt a child…especially one that’s nearly the mirror image of his brother.”  Dex said, ‘I’ll be quick.”  Kat nodded and went over to the clearing of grass.  Dex started towards the forest clumsily sprinting.

*****

Kat walked around on the grass, avoiding the snow with its cold bitter sting, and rubbed his wings against his body for warmth. He circled the small area, and thought about things.  His mind drifted back to those last painful moments, and the revelation of where he came from.   In the end, all his trying to feel like part of the family was in vain, he never was a part of the family to begin with. When he had been knocked out, he vaguely remembered one very early memory of his pre-Toyaka life.  He remembered being held by a woman with auburn hair and freckles, and talked to, gently and quietly.  

She was different from the mother he knew somehow, from the way she talked.  Mother…Kagami…she could seem ‘sweet’ but even when she spoke in sweet honeyed tones, there was vinegar behind it.  No, vinegar wasn’t the right word.  She sounded sweet but deadly.  Cyanide. She didn’t know how to be gentle, just how to seem that way.  

Throughout his short life he had experienced a psychic link that had given him links to this other world.  He never spoke to Kagami –Mother (he still couldn’t shake the feeling that thinking of her by her real name would cause trouble.  Even if she couldn’t reach him, he felt that something bad might happen if he didn’t pay his proper respects to the Toyaka matriarch) about it.  She would be angry.  He dismissed them as dreams, dreams he couldn’t explain.  It probably made him seem stupid that he had those dreams and didn’t start to connect the dots until he learned, through a little scientific curiosity, that he had ginger roots.  But really the honest truth was that he didn’t want to know. His experiment with his hair had been an attempt to try and prove they weren’t real.  

Maybe in that way, the traitor had been right in what he always said. Emotions made you stupid. Emotions, like desperation and hope ,could make a kid who could calculate algebra in his head, still be a stupid little boy, who did stupid things, just to belong to the family he grew up in.

“Gyah!” Seized by the urge to give into his compulsion, he raised a hoof to his head, before remembering he no longer had fingers. “Damn!”  There was another reason he hated this form.  In desperation he stopped pacing and using his mouth, pulled out a small feather from his wings.  It had been two days and he wasn’t sure how much longer it would be until his system had run clean of medication.  Who knew if it already had when his body was changed into this….this stupid tiny horse thing.   He continued pacing stopping every now and then to look toward the forest.  

He froze as he saw his twin brother stirring. He had half a mind to run and half a mind to duck and hide.    Heart pounding he watched and waited while Timothy Stryke twitched and then change his position.   When he didn’t move after that Kat sighed a breath of relief. It seemed like the other boy was either still out cold , or trying to stay asleep  not sure he wanted to face what now lied ahead. Maybe he would try to tell himself it was a dream, who knew?

“Katsuya!”  Kat was pulled out of his thoughts when he saw Dex approaching with a rickety old sled, crudely fixed, by Dex himself from the looks of it. He pulled it using a rope he held between his teeth.  When he made it over, he spat the rope out with a huge breath of air. “I found this just outside the town, probably lost by some child. “

“We’re going to have to get used to holding things with our mouth aren’t we?” He held up a hoof and shook it, “These things are bleeding useless.”  Dex gave Kat a severe look for his language.  “You’d say the same” the child muttered.  

“ _You_ are a child.” Dex said.  

“So is Shiro but he can curse like the worst of them when his mother isn’t in earshot”

“He’s at least sixteen though.” Kat pouted digging one hoof in the dirt. “Anyhow…what I need you to do is help me move your brother and the others on this, so I can pull them closer to the town where they’ll be noticed.”  Kat nodded giving an awkward salute.

Between the two of them, a twenty year old and an eleven year old, moving the other teenagers and child was quite a task, but still fairly manageable.  Dex pulled them to a spot just outside of the city where he prepared a clearing.  It probably took about two hours before they were done.  The sky was starting to slowly become lighter.  As Dex pushed the last row of snow away from the bodies using the sled, he turned to see Katsuya starting to drift off. The boy opened his eyes with a start and shook himself.

“Are we done yet?”  

“Yes….all we need is to return this” he nodded at the sled, “back to where it belongs so it can be found by its proper owner.”  Katsuya rolled his eyes a bit. “I don’t want to leave any proof that we were here.”

“Can I go with you this time?”

“Yes.”  Dex said.  Kat was shocked when Dex kneeled down and nodded toward his back. “Get on”

“…wha…?”

“Get _on_ ” Dex said gruffly, giving Katsuya a fixed glare.  Kat awkwardly climbed on and clung to his teacher and older brother tightly. It was unlike Dex to be like this. He normally would have expected the men to tell him to walk on his own two legs. It’s not that Dex was intentionally cruel, just harsh.  Dex was one of the few people that wouldn’t give Kat an anxiety attack if he touched him, but Dex never so much as put a hand on his shoulder.  A few times he had grabbed him roughly to stop him from doing something that would hurt himself, usually while chiding him for being a “damned idiot”.  Kat was eventually lulled to sleep by the movement of his surface.  

 

******

 

Returning the sled to its place didn’t take too long.  Dex was relieved that the boy fell asleep rather quickly; it’s what he had been counting on after doing all that work.  Once he returned he gave the area where the older teens laid one last look over. The snow was pushed far away from their bodies, so they wouldn’t have to worry too much about frostbite, hopefully.  The siblings were positions close enough to brush each other so they could share body heat.  

He noticed a few of them stirring, fidgeting. It reassured him to know that they alive enough. Who knew how awake they were?  

“Take care of each other.” He said.  For once, his main worry was not whether he could trust the mundane kids, but whether Shiro and Skye would be able to get past their family’s differences, and their shared grudge.  He had discovered last year that Gem and Rusty Tekton were devoted friends, just as devoted as Skye was to them.  They were decent, for mundanes.  

He left them and started heading towards the opposite direction of the small town, hoping to find a place to stay.  

Dex wandered for a few miles, having to take a few moments to rest.  His body would ache and sometimes he felt a sting as Katsuya’s limbs brushed against a bruise.  He would grit his teeth but keep himself moving forward, not giving too much thought to the pain.   It was like what he had been taught, and taught his students, if you dwelled on unpleasant feelings they wouldn’t get any better.  Either do something about it if you could, or endure it if you couldn’t.  He had to teach that lesson to Shiro on multiple occasions. Shifting bones was not a pleasant experience and the younger boy had a predisposition to complain.  

At some point he felt something on his back as the child awoke with a jolt.  He had been restless in his sleeping.  He was breathing heavily.  

“….calm down…you’re safe now.”  He kept his voice unusually quiet in tone.  His normal brusque manner wouldn’t help a hysterical child.

“I…..It’s fine” However it was an obvious lie, choked out with a small sob.  

“Don’t lie….you’re not fine.”  Dex said.  Katsuya sniffed.  

“I’m not weak!” the boy insisted, “I’m fine”

“You’re traumatized, just like the rest of us who were involved.”  Dex was headed towards some caved he saw in the distance.  He heard Kat sniffle.  He had been hard on him before, which he was starting to regret.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, when as a younger man, he was trying to prepare Katsuya for life, and at the same time trying to distance himself.  He used to think if he was impatient and harsh in teaching his “step-brother” that it would make Kat want less to do with him. But it only made Kat work harder in hopes of earning Dex’s approval.  

Once he realized this he tried to soften his approach, while still being effective and let some fondness for his devoted student show.  But even then he couldn’t completely, because, to his great embarrassment, he had never learned how.  Throughout his bleak childhood, he had only learned how to numb his emotions, occasionally letting them out in dangerous bursts of temper.  After being so out of touch with his emotions for so long, to prevent accusations of empathic ability.

The head of household’s son, the head of the family business could not be an empath.  As if being the rivals of the ’upstanding’ Stryke family wasn’t bad enough.  The Toyaka’s got everything they had through hard work, underhanded means, and, most of all, a reputation as the biggest bully on the playground.  

“….You don’t seem traumatized.”  Katsuya said.

“Well…I had practice” Dex said, “sometimes when you live long enough and you’ll gain that.”  It shouldn’t be that way, but he couldn’t deny that growing up in this family, one was conditioned to seeing shocking things, and learning to hide secrets.  Katsuya stayed quiet for a while as Dex pushed himself to reach the caves.  Once they made it, he positioned himself so as to allow Kat to slide off landing on his feet, and then he started resting himself.  He took a few moments to adjust his legs comfortably.  

But he didn’t sleep, oh no, not yet.  

He was the adult, he needed to be sharp.  It was fortunate that he did too, because at some point Kat got up and wandered farther in the caves, after awaking from another nightmare. There was the sound of a strange hissing Dex got up without thinking and went to defend Katsuya from what it was.  It was a strange black creature with beaded eyes and fangs barely bigger than Katsuya himself. On instinct Dex raised hoof and knocked the creature away as it launched itself at him.  

“…….damn….” Kat said quietly, admiring how he had nearly knocked it out of the cave.  The creature scrambled to its feet and skittered off.  

“Did it hurt you?” Dex asked.

“No….it just…it jumped at me.”

“Stay close to me.”  The two of them returned to their spot, with Kat curled up right by Dex.  He watched as the child drifted back to sleep. He started to nod off a bit himself, and fought sleep until they were interrupted again.   The creature returned, with its mother.

Or that was who Dex assumed the tall dark creature that came in and pointed a horn to his head to be.

“ _Give me one reason I shouldn’t blast your head off._ ”  She said.   To her credit she didn’t raise her voice; she was able to maintain command without it.  Her voice, bug-like in a way, was full of sweetened poison, just like his own mother.  

“Self defense” Dex responded levelly.  “I assume that you are here because your child was threatened.  I had the same motives when your child threatened my student here.” He nodded down to Katsuya.  “He was already considerably weakened and I had to defend him.”

She looked somewhat taken aback by his answer for a few moments.  

“Are we not entitled to protection and safety as you are?”

*****

In the days after the failed press conference, Chrysalis found herself feeling more anxious than she did triumphant.  She should be happy, one would think, that she had gotten this far.  But all she thought about some days was how this plan could fail. That she should quit while she was still ahead.  She would attempt to keep that half of her smothered.  It only reminded her of her failures in the past. But she had learned from them.

She had learned that she should not underestimate whatever power came from the Princess of Love.  She had been skeptical of love as a whole since, as far as she could remember even in her pre-changeling days that it had never done much except weaken her. Things that the ponies valued like love and friendship (only for each other though, the ‘loving kind ponies’ could be downright nasty when a changeling dared to show its face to them) did little for her.  Friendship led to her becoming a changeling, love had resulted in heartbreak when she tried to turn to Steelshoe for support.  But of course “Perfect Little Miss Love” would have special powers when it came to her specialty.  

Chrysalis would go to her ‘room’ within the hive to check if the horn was still there. The horn of Sombra, found lying near the border between the chilly far north and Equestria after some nasty arctic storms.  A unicorn’s horn was a magical object by its nature. Normally it would cease working after its owner died at some point, but Sombra was a little more than the average unicorn and his horn was charged full of black magic, which preserved it after his death.  It was a cursed object…but still magical. Chrysalis treated it with utmost reverence and caution, knowing to whom it used to belong.  Steelshoe had rebuffed her in her time of need, true. But even as she grew bitter, she could not completely let go. It made her feel two very strong feelings, sadness remembering what she had with Steel, and what could have been; and resentment knowing that the black magic he drowned himself effectively killed him, and replaced him with Sombra.    By the time he rose to power, Steelshoe had died, and Sombra had taken his place.  

She had a feeling the Steelshoe would have wanted the Empress to regain her rightful place.  At least that’s what she told herself.   There were times she laid awake at night, wondering, if Steelshoe were still alive, would he consider the Empress dead and the Changeling Queen something that had risen in her place?  Was it even fair of her to think that of him?  She had to think of it this way, because she simply could not reconcile the nobleman’s son with the creature who wiped out unicorns and drove pegasi from his land.  Her feeling toward ponies were fraught with complication, but even she had boundaries she clung to, lines she would not cross.  There were things that were just evil, and she had to hold on to that, so she wouldn’t lose her mind in all the terrible things she learned of, when she committed an act of murder.

Right now though, she had to take it one step at a time.  First step was getting her kingdom back; second step was separating it from Equestria.  She wanted her life back.  

“Queen! “  The temptation to check the horn again receded…for now. A small changeling came in bruised and limping.  He threw himself down in a bow. “I apologize, I-I a unicorn, and a foal took up residence in th-the place I was sent to watch.  The unicorn attacked me when I was defending myself against his foal.”

“What?”

“He w-was pretty tall, white, had a long black mane and he looked kind of beat up.  I thought he’d be weak but smacked me a whole three feet.”

“Take me to him.”  What Chrysalis expected perhaps was another pony who would look upon her as a monster in horror and take for granted that he had a position of privilege over her. Someone who would blast a changeling for looking at him wrong. What he didn’t expect was the weary eyed lean unicorn stallion with the look of a broken survivor.  When she confronted him, he spoke with reason, and made a statement that confused her.

_“Are we not entitled to protection and safety as you are?”_

_DID HE JUST…?_

No…it couldn’t be…

This pony with a Canterlot accent had just compared himself, putting himself on the same level as a changeling.

On one hand such a statement irked her, and she almost wanted to find it offensive.  Except, no ‘’proper pony” would dare equate themselves with a changeling.  Changelings were in the eyes of ponies (and some griffins), outcasts, rogues.  Cursed ponies. This strange foolish unicorn didn’t even realize what he was saying. Chrysalis looked at him

“Do you not have a home?”  

“….our home befell a disaster, at the time we really have nowhere to stay.”   He said.  Chrysalis raised a brow.

“I see…..I suppose that is fair.”  She said. “Did you not have any friends or family to stay with no one who would take you in?”

“We do not wish to put anyone out.  For the night we’ll stay here, perhaps we will move along in the morning.” He said, “I apologize for the harm I caused your child.  We have just experienced a bit of a shock, you see and when we were threatened, I acted first on impulse.”

“Is the foal your child?”  She asked.

“No he’s my brother.”  

“Quite the age difference.” She said ,her voice full of amused skepticism.

“Long story.” The unicorn said, with a half shrug.  Chrysalis looked over the unicorn for a long time.  He was different from most Equestrian ponies, he acted in violence against one of her subjects, true, but he did it in defense, and he apologized after.  She found herself feeling curious about him, but still slightly on her guard.  After all he was still a pony.  But having allies never hurt.  She might even be able to use a pony ally.  Goodness knows the Equestrians nor the Crystal Ponies would take anything from a Changeling seriously.  

“Well…we have space in the Hive, if you don’t mind staying with changelings.  Most ponies do.”  She said. The unicorn furrowed his brows thinking for a moment.

“We have no such problems…so long as we will not be a burden on you.”Chrysalis gave a sweet smile.  

“Of course not.  We are always happy to help someone in need.”   A bit of a lie, yes, but it was for a good cause, this stallion and his foal might be able to pay her back by helping in her plan.   She led the two back to her hive, feeling victorious.  

Sometimes wonderful things came in strange packages.  


	6. A Winter Wrap Up Surprise

In a treehouse the evening before Winter Wrap Up, three fillies were holding a sleepover meeting of their club.  Raised voices could be heard, but they were not voices of argument but of two fillies getting over excited about plans.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about” Apple Bloom said, “If we can get more ponies to know about the cutie mark crusaders we might get more interested, we already got Babs in Manhatten.  So, it’s responsbil’ty ta get our branch more expanded like she probably is!” Apple Bloom had been thinking about this a lot, especially after she last saw Babs at the family reunion. Then when she got her cousin’s last letter saying she had four other ponies. There were now five ponies in her group, while Apple Bloom’s original group hadn’t grown one little bit.  It made Apple Bloom a little jealous, to be honest.  She wanted to make the Cutie Mark Crusaders something huge.  

“Yeah! “ Sweetie Belle agreed. Scootaloo seemed to be only half listening.  They both looked to her.  

“Oh ….uh…yeah…that sounds good.” She said with a shrug.  Apple Bloom sighed and shook her head. Since she presented her thoughts Scootaloo had been quiet and unresponsive.  She wasn’t fooled by her friend’s halfhearted attempts to look like she was participating.  It hurt her a little that her friend was faking it (and doing it so poorly made it even worse)

“Scootaloo, just tell me what ya really think?” Apple Bloom said.  Scootaloo rolled her eyes.

“Okay, don’t get mad or anything but I think you’re forgetting why we started the Cutie Mark crusaders in the first place. “ Scootaloo said.  “To find our cutie marks, not to find fifty other ponies without cutie marks.”

“Well maybe if we had more ponies we could have more ideas on how to get Cutie Marks.” Apple Bloom said, “Which means we could get them faster.”

“Let’s be real here, what new ideas will they have other than the usual ‘just stick to what you like’.” Scootaloo said.

“Kin ya just listen to my ideas for a second?” Apple Bloom said.”Now..if you had let me FINISH…” she fixed a look at Scootaloo, “I would have told ya that my plan was that we could volunteer a li’l harder with Winter Wrap Up, this year.  Mah sister told me that community service stuff like this would get our club noticed, and” she noticed Scootaloo about to say something, “it might also help us find our cutie marks.”

“In what?  Raking leaves?” Scootaloo snorted.  

“Scootaloo, why don’t you give Apple Bloom’s idea a chance?” Sweetie Belle said, “I think it sounds fun.  And besides it’s not like it can hurt any.”  Scootaloo sighed.

“Fine….we’ll try it.  But if it doesn’t work can we forget this expansion stuff and just go back to trying to get cutie marks like the old days?”  Apple Bloom bit her lip fighting down the urge to yell at her friend.  At least Scootaloo said she’d give it a try.  

“Well not forever-” This led to more bickering between the two until Sweetie Belle, of all ponies, yelled at them to stop.  This shocked the two fillies quiet.

“If you two don’t stop fighting I’m going to call Rarity and tell her to take me home!”  She said.  There was no question that she was serious; her voice cracked audibly like it always did when she was worked up and she had tears in her eyes.

“Oh-okay”

“Sorry, Sweetie Belle.” Scootaloo said. There was an awkward silence for a few moments. “So we’ll give the whole volunteering thing a try, I guess.” The fillies did their Cutie Mark Handshake, although not as enthusiastically, as each of them had something on their minds.  Apple Bloom was trying to think of ways to bring in more blank flanked fillies and colts to be part of the CMC,  Scootaloo was trying to think of ways to get Apple Bloom stop with this expansion obsession, and Sweetie Belle just wanted her friends to stop fighting.  The three of them went to bed shortly afterward.  

*****

One of the Ponyville Winter Wrap Up traditions that the girls forgot to take into account was waking insanely early and being out ready to the crack of dawn.  She and her friends were awoken by Applejack standing outside their clubhouse at seven in the morning. It looked like she had already done a little work.

“Y’all best be getting fixed to go now, if you’re expectin’ to help” she said, “A lot of the work’s already getting’ started!”  That was all it took to get Apple Bloom up.

“Ah cain’t believe ‘am late!  C’mon girls!  We gotta get up!”  Apple Bloom said. Scootaloo groaned.

“Late? It’s seven in the morning…seven” she said. Sweetie Belle was yawning as well. Unlike them, Apple Bloom was actually used to waking up somewhat early. Living on a farm it was a way of life.  Applejack would even wake her bright and early in the summertime so she could help. Contrary to what one might think, Apple Bloom wasn’t averse to this, or doing hard work for the family.  Sure sometimes she griped, but for the most part, getting to help on the farm was more of a privilege than a chore.  

When she was very small Apple Bloom wanted desperately to help, to be like the big kids.  Applejack was very careful with her, since she was born and was always telling her she had to be older to do heavy lifting.  So Apple Bloom helped where she could, and it meant all the more to her.  

She was out and ready before all of them, fretting about what they might have missed. Would there still be ponies needing her help? She was bouncing on the tips of her hooves waiting for Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.  

“Relax Apple Bloom, you know how it went last year, we were workin’ all day.” Applejack said.

“Plenty ‘a daylight left” Mac said.

“But if I’m too late the older ponies won’t even need me, and we’ll get stuck doin’ foal work that don’t even count as real community service.” Apple Bloom said.  Last year she wound up working simple jobs with the other kids. They were given simple little tasks that were mindless busywork that made the little fillies and colts feel good.  But now Apple Bloom felt silly doing these simple things.  Applejack piled a few pancakes on her plate as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle trudged in yawning.  

“Good mornin’ girls!  Happy Winter Wrap Up!  You ready to bring in spring.”  

“Can’t spring wait a little bit…like…til 9”  Scootaloo said.

“Nope, sorry, sugarcube. We need to get the gears rollin’ soon as possible, so all the lil’ critters can get on with their lives and the crops can grow-for land’s sakes Apple Bloom, slow down or you’re gonna choke!” Apple Bloom was inhaling her pancakes in an effort to get out the door as soon as she could.  

“I’m…” Apple Bloom gasped for breath as she gulped down her juice and it went down the wrong pipe.  Once she was finished she offered a very unconvincing “I’m fine.”  Once she was done she went over to the door closet and threw on her scarf and boots. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo exchanged looks.  As they finished their food and put on their scarves and boots Apple Bloom was about ready to go out the door.  

Applejack looked up at the clock.

“I gotta get goin’  Carrot Top’s shift ended five minutes ago.”  She said.  Before she left she imparted a warning on the girls, particularly Apple Bloom.  

“Now have a good time, and remember, community service means ya help to help, not to get somethin’ outta the deal.”  

*****

Twilight had been in the middle of town near city hall since the early hours of morning, and she was just getting the feeling back in the tips of her wings.  One cup of Pinkie’s hot cocoa had helped considerably.  She never ceased to be amazed by how early Pinkie could be awake when she wanted to.  All that energy she expended looked downright exhausting.  By now sunrise had lit up the town.  The pegasi were already in the air, being led by Rainbow Dash.

“Hey Twi? You gonna join us up here?” Rainbow called.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea” Twilight said sheepishly, “You know I haven’t really gotten the hang of these yet.”

“Oh, right” Rainbow laughed sheepishly. “Well don’t you worry, Twi, I got everything under control.” She gave her friend a salute, and Twilight returned it.   Twilight continued on, the pegasi were all doing their jobs according to plan.  She could see all the flight teams going out to guide birds back.  

Pinkie traded off with the Cakes, to go work on the ice breaking, Twilight made another check on her clipboard.  The Cakes were offering hot cocoa this year to warm up cold, hardworking ponies.  After quite a few ponies caught colds last year, Pinkie suggested having something to warm them up.  Granny Smith also signed up to volunteer, and was offering warm dandelion soup, and apple tarts.

“Now let’s go check on Applejack.”  Spike, who was more awake this year, having been ready to participate, nodded.  As she went about doing her rounds, she had to admit that this was completely unlike her last Winter Wrap Up.  She liked having a job to do, and a place to be.  It calmed her nerves a bit. Having the pieces all fitting into place as the town organizer made things simple and it calmed her anxieties. One less thing to worry about.  The anxieties that crawled into her mind and caused worries had plagued her since she was a filly. They always came up when things didn’t go according to plan.

It was for this reason that she was keeping her thoughts of Shining Armor at bay for the day so she could focus on the task.  She told herself that he was just having a case of the nerves and he would figure things out. It would do for today.  

“Hey Twi!” Twilight waved back and Spike made another check.  Applejack trotted over to meet her calling to her fellow workers that she would “be back in a jiffy”  “So how ya doin’ lately? Things okay…with…you know?”On the one hoof Twilight appreciated that she was concerned but on the other, she wished Applejack hadn’t brought up that can-of-worms topic again.

“Oh yeah…I’m just telling myself it’s nothing too big.” She said. “I need to just focus on one thing at a time.”  She stopped when she noticed a few ponies watching them with baited breath.  Some of them whispered things about the ‘Princess’. Applejack sighed in annoyance.

“Why don’t you make yourselves useful and get back to workin’” She said sharply. The ponies looked rather abashed and went back to working heads hanging. Even though the scolding wasn’t directed at her Twilight was surprised at the sharp tone of her friends’ scolding.

“You think that was a bit harsh?”she asked.

“Nope” Applejack said, not even remotely ashamed.  “You’re my friend and I ain’t gonna let ponies treat you like a sideshow attraction.”   Twilight smiled a little, reminded again why she loved her friends. She continued to walk around checking on everypony.  For the moment it seemed like this Winter Wrap Up was going just as according to plan.   But little did she know it wouldn't last long, due to some very over-competitive fillies.

*****

The Cutie Mark Crusaders weren’t the only ones looking to do some more grown-up work on Winter Wrap Up.  Silver Spoon, like Apple Bloom was thinking a lot about growing up lately.  She had met ponies who introduced her to things, hobbies that while sometimes seeming dorky, made her feel more like her.  For years since she had met Diamond Tiara she couldn’t help feeling like she was nothing but a ‘Yes-Pony’.  A handful of times she had disagreed with Diamond Tiara and instead of an agreement to disagree, she had to deal with Diamond’s rage. When she applauded for Granny Smith’s speech on Family Appreciation Day , Diamond cornered her later to have cross words with her, and made Silver have to ‘make it up to her’.  Soon she was afraid to disagree with Diamond. She never knew when she would get off with a shrug or a look, or when she would get the brat’s rage.    

This left her feeling resentful, and made her resort to passive aggressive spite.  When made her feel just plain awful, and soon she was begging to spend more time in Maanehatten with her father’s family.  She talked to her stepsister about it, and her stepsister told her that it sounded like she didn’t really like Diamond anymore, and she was probably going to continue feeling miserable until she talked to Diamond.

But that wasn’t that easy. When she got home she tried to talk to Diamond and tell her how she felt and about how she felt like she couldn’t be herself.  Diamond told her she was oversensitive and being a foal. Sometimes Silver wished she had the courage to end things right there and then. But she didn’t She was afraid of the cruel words Diamond would have for her when faced with her rejection.  But she did manage to send a message when she turned down an invitation for a sleepover (more like a demand) in favor of time with her family.

Diamond Tiara, to her credit, wised up after hat and started being a little nicer.  Or, more likely she started the honeymoon phase of their relationship, passive-aggressively making Silver Spoon feel guilt for being mad at her. Silver wasn’t even sure anymore.  She only stayed with Diamond after the Gabby Gums incident because she still wanted to get back at Apple Bloom and her friends.  Not because they didn’t have their cutie marks.  She couldn’t care less about that. But one of the ponies that Gabby Gums gossiped about was her mother and father’s personal business. They hurt someone Silver cared about and she could not forgive that.  So she put up with Diamond.  Otherwise she’d be left alone in her class.

That morning Diamond spotted the three of them huddled together talking.  Silver was thinking about other things. She may have a score to settle with them, but she wasn’t obsessed like Diamond was sometimes.  As Silver walked around looking around for a real job to do.  Things like putting welcome cards in nests was a childish and stupid task that kindergarten foals did, birds couldn’t even read! But still adults told them it was the thought that counts. She saw Ms. Amethyst Star and Ms. Fluttershy talking.  Maybe she could talk to them. She knew older fillies and colts helped lead the animals that sounded useful. She figured that Diamond was probably off getting a hot cocoa and bragging to the adults about her new …something or other.  As Silver Spoon approached, she remembered that Ms. Fluttershy might not take to her well, after what Diamond Tiara had pulled last fall.  It made Silver cringe with secondhand embarrassment.  It was one thing one Diamond picked on other kids, but poking fun at an adult’s stuttering was seriously out of line.  Silver wished she had the courage to say something afterward, to apologize. But she lost her nerve.

“Silver Spoon!”  She jumped as she heard the demanding voice of Diamond Tiara.  The little brat came over wearing a sparkly hat and a scarf with beaded tassels.  “You’ll never believe who I overheard on the way over here.”

“Let me guess Apple Blunder and her dorky friends, right” Silver sighed.  The farmer girl was always so full of dumb ideas for their club.  She didn’t know why any sane pony would join a group that advertised their lack of cutie mark.

“Apple Blunder.  That’s a good one” Diamond giggled, “But yeah, they were talking about some community service mess to promote their loser club.”  

“Yeah…so?” Silver asked. It would crash and fall apart on its own, all their plans did.  Diamond made a noise of impatience.  

“Well isn’t it obvious what we have to do?  We have to do better than her and show everypony that we can do much better than a bunch of blank flanks” she said.  Silver stared at Diamond wondering if she really realized what she was saying.

“Diamond….that involves work, you do realize that, right” She said.

“WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”  For a moment Diamond almost looked demonic in her anger.  

“Nothing!  Just……” Silver Spoon sighed and then spoke words she knew she’d regret. “Okay, let’s do it.”  And that was how it started.  Diamond led Silver to where the other fillies were, because of course, she had to beat them and be able to rub their face in it.  The two groups of fillies traveled from group to group aggressively “helping’ and taunting one another.  Silver was actually trying to do the best she could, and actually accomplish something positive, even if they were doing it in mean spiritedness.  

Diamond Tiara, just as Silver Spoon predicted was not used to working hard.  Silver was also spoiled true, but she had some experience with working, having to do chores for her stepmother in Manhattan.  She had hated it at first but now she found herself so very, very thankful that she had, and thankful that she had a father who knew how to speak sternly to her.  She wanted to shudder at the thought of turning out as spoiled as Diamond Tiara.

Silver could have kicked her “friend” for throwing a hissy fit and yelling at the animals they were trying to lead.  She wanted to gag and roll her eyes as Diamond shed crocodile tears when Amethyst corrected her and acted like a little drama queen about being criticized.  Of course she didn’t show any of this because then she would end up spending weeks being forced to grovel and plead for forgiveness while Diamond Tiara acted like she had been wounded deeply and “didn’t think she could get over it.”

 

*****

 

What was meant to be a possibly fun day of helping out and celebrating the coming of spring was ruined when Diamond Tiara caught wind of what they were doing.  Every time they would go somewhere to try and help some pony, whether with helping animals to planting and organizing seeds, to skating on the ice with Pinkie, to making nests with Rarity, Diamond and Silver would show up and try to work faster and do better, or when the adults back was turned , try to sabotage them.  

“Just ignore them” Sweetie said when they met up after leaving Rarity and Spike to make nests with Diamond and Tiara.

“But they’re ruinin’ everythin’!” Apple Bloom stamped a hoof.  She felt furious tears on her face, but quickly wiped them away. She didn’t want to risk the two seeing her and knowing they got to her.  She told herself that she would just have to do better than them.

“Why don’t we just go home?” Scootaloo said.

“We can’t, cause then they’ll think they can get to us!  Besides, you’re not a quitter are ya?”

“No, I just think it’s stupid to keep competing with them and making them feel important” Scootaloo said.

“Let’s try plantin’ seeds,  ain’t no way Applejack will let them get away with anythin’ there.”  The three of them agreed and made for the fields. Applejack set them to working on sorting seed packets. Of course Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were drawn in soon after and played the ‘innocent filly’ act.  

“You know this is work, right girls?” Applejack asked, eyeing them with distrust.  Apple Bloom barely looked up from her sorting but she grinned to herself, proud of her older sister.  However another one of the adults bought their act.

“Let them work Applejack, what can they hurt?” she asked.

“You don’t know these girls like ah do, Carrot Top” Diamond however was good at pouting and playing innocent.  

“Oh, don’t be childish, you’re the adult and they’re only children.”  Applejack shot an annoyed look as Carrot Top gave the girls instructions on how to sort seeds.  When nopony was looking Diamond shot a smirk at the Crusaders.  She took over monopolizing the workstation and harshly criticized the three blank flanked fillies on their seed sorting, which led to a heated argument between her and Apple Bloom.  

It was unbelievable!  How could Diamond act like she knew more about anything relating to farming than Apple Bloom who had actually lived on a farm.  What right did she have to say that she could do better when only weeks prior she had said that she wouldn’t touch a hoe if she was paid to.  These were the things on Apple Bloom’s mind as she raised a hoof and smacked the pink pony right in the nose.  This led to an all out seed flinging fight until the girls were told to leave by Carrot Top.

“Let them help, ya said.  What could they hurt, ya said.” They heard Applejack hiss.  

“Why don’t you face it , anything you can do we can do better.”  Diamond said.

“That ain’t true!” Apple Bloom said, “we were doing just fine til you came along and ruined everythin’ by pickin’ fights.” Diamond Tiara rolled her eyes and sighed.  

“I feel sorry for you Apple Bloom, I really do.”  She said shaking her head, “I’m sure that telling yourself you’re good at sorting seeds will make you feel better, even in light of the fact that you’re so slow you don’t even have a cutie mark at almost eleven years old.  Come on Silver, let’s go.  We need to help some of the others, and fix the mess these losers made.”    

That little- that little….

Well there were a lot of words on her mind right now but all of them were three-drops-of-soap-and-no-dessert words.  

“Come on girls!”  She didn’t see Sweetie and Scootaloo exchange looks and face hoof behind her.  For the next hour the original reason for their helping was long-forgotten in favor of “beat Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon at anything”.  The two bullies managed to pull Scootaloo into it by mocking Sweetie Belle and making her cry. They left quite a bit of disarray, confusion and grumbling in their wake.

The worst of it came when Diamond challenged Scootaloo on the ice, calling her a “penguin pony” because she couldn’t fly.  The two of them started racing laps around the lake , fierce enough to make most of the older ponies, even Pinkie Pie want to get off the ice.  Scootaloo by the final lap was doing well, beating Diamond Tiara.  It looked like she was going to “win” and anyone who knew Diamond knew she couldn’t have that.  So just as Diamond pulled up to a very focused Scootaloo, she held out one sharp blade ice skate right in front of the filly’s hooves. The two skates got entangled and in a moment both were sent flying.

Scootaloo gave a cry of pain and Diamond Tiara gave a blood curdling screech.  

Apple Bloom watched helplessly while several ponies flew to the girls’ aid.  Pinkie Pie watched looking  shaky while a pair of unicorns lifted Scootaloo out of the crack she was caught in and tended to Diamond’s hurt leg.  Silver Spoon looked panicky as well as she watched, muttering something under her breath.  Ponies surrounded the lake, and all went quiet as the crowds parted to allow Princess Twilight through.  

Apple Bloom tried to push down the lump in her throat.  

“What happened here?” Twilight did not look happy at all.  Apple Bloom felt her mouth go dry.. Sweetie sniffled and started stuttering apologies.  

“The girls were going really super fast” Pinkie said, “I mean I tried to tell them to slow down.”  Apple Bloom remembered Pinkie shouting at them to slow down.  They had ignored her and kept cheering Scootaloo on.   They should have told her not to race, but Apple Bloom was so caught up in beating Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.  

There was something terrifying about an angry alicorn.  Especially when they were angry at you.

“Racing? “ Twilight said glaring at the fillies.  “You were racing?  Does this look like a race track to you?” Applejack was somewhere behind her, shaking her head angrily.  

“N-no” Apple Bloom said feeling ashamed.  However Diamond Tiara didn’t seem to have any shame.   She leaned forward against the warnings of the ponies patching her up.

“It was Scootaloo’s idea! She challenged us when we only wanted to help out, and then…then when she tripped me-“  Scootaloo interjected

“I tripped you??  Even in spite of being soaking wet and limping, she still looked a little scary as she tried to lunge toward Diamond raising her non-injured hoof, “You…you….you LYING BRAT!” Diamond just started fake-crying again.  

“ENOUGH!” Twilight shouted. “Girls, Winter Wrap Up is not a race.  You’re here to help.  And, so far your competing has been causing nothing but trouble.” She sighed “I’m sorry but, I’m going to have to ask you to go home and let the adults work.”  

“…but we didn’t mean-“ Apple Bloom started.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve already caused enough trouble for one day.”  Apple Bloom kept her gaze stubbornly on the ground.  She wasn’t going to cry…she wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t going to…oh buck it.  

Scootaloo was patched up and the three of them started on their way back to the club house, leaving Twilight to deal with a defiant Diamond Tiara.  The ponies slowly started going back to work now that the spectacle was over.  Apple Bloom didn’t want to think about the words her older sister would have for her tonight.  

****

Things soon went back to business as usual; a few of the groups had to do some extra work to make up for the mess the fillies made which would take a few hours of work.   Fortunately Rainbow Dash didn’t have that problem.  She continued to call out commands and send out teams to bring back the birds.  Sometime in the afternoon things seemed to get back on track. Even in spite of the mess made it seemed like they’d make a good recovery.  Rainbow Dash wasn’t entirely sure what happened, nor did she want to know because from where she was looking it looked a bit messy.

“RAINBOW!”  Rainbow Dash nearly jumped at the sound of two panicked voices and then turned around.  Derpy Hooves and Cloud Kicker were looking very panicked.

“What?” Rainbow asked.  She hoped this wouldn’t be another distraction.

“W-we  found something….I-I think you should-“ Derpy started.  

“We were leading some of the birds back, and as we were reaching Ponyville, Derpy spotted some blood spots in the snow.”

“Yeah….I think some of the kids took a spill by the lake” Rainbow Dash said impatiently, “Youd didn’t just leave the birds did you?”

“No” Derpy shook her head, “Not there, outside the town! I promise I’m not making this up.”  After a moment she added, “And it’s not my fault either!”  Many of the weather team tended to be impatient with Derpy’s clumsiness, which came from her eye problem, and blamed her when things went wrong.  She used to be oblivious but lately it seemed like not only was she aware, she was particularly sensitive about it.  

“No one thinks you did it Derpy” Rainbow said.  Below her she saw some earth ponies running over, Applejack was following.  

“Rainbow we got trouble” she called, “Some ponies found something mighty strange-“

“Yeah, yeah I heard.”  Rainbow said. “Look, just show me where you found it okay? “  She sighed, was more than one normal Winter Wrap up every five years too much to ask for?   She followed both the weather ponies and the pegasi to the spot where they found the drops.  It was, unmistakably blood. The snow nearby was marred by dirt and skid marks.  “Maybe it’s an animal or something.”  She said.  

“Ah don’t think so, Rainbow.”  Applejack had been following the disturbance in the snow out to a hill right by the Everfree Forest.  “Ya’ll better c’mere and take a look at this.”  She looked a little pale and sickly.  Rainbow followed her to a fairly large clearing.

Bodies.

Six ponies were laying out in the snow.  Rainbow Dash lowered herself to the ground and tried to get a closer look.

They were all well in one piece, thankfully and looked like they were sleeping, or unconscious.  They were positioned in pairs nearby one another, probably to preserve body heat.  They were fairly bruised looking, but it was hard to tell from whom exactly the blood came from.  It left Rainbow feeling a bit disturbed.  

She looked closer at the ponies who were laying there.  They didn’t look like anyone anypony recognized so far.  Rainbow knew she certainly had never seen any of these ponies.   As she looked closer she realized the ponies were younger than her.  One of them was a colt no older than the Cutie Mark Crusaders.  Six ponies, all of them kids, were out here lying on the ground for Celestia only knew how long.  

“Who in Equestria would so somethin’ like this?”  Applejack said quietly. Rainbow shook her head.

“I don’t know Applejack.”  She looked back to the other ponies.  “Send for a doctor.  They might still be alive.”  Applejack nodded and she and the two other earth ponies took off.  Rainbow continued circling them.  The colt was a bright yellow pegasus, lying near a stocky light blue unicorn.    She suddenly jumped as one of them made a small sound.  An older pegasus, probably about as old as Pinkie Pie at most made a small raspy noise as his body moved up and down.  

They were alive!  

Applejack made it back with Twilight in tow, along with Doctor Horse and Nurse Redheart, and a couple other volunteers.  The strange young ponies were taken to the doctor, and the rest of the ponies, Rainbow Dash included went back to working, many in numb shock.


	7. Strange Ponies

Skye felt himself blink in and out of consciousness, and for the longest time he felt too weary to do more than flitter his eyes.  Just as he was starting to feel the rest of his body wake up a little there was a light in his eyes, so bright he had to close them and the sound of voices over him.  He felt as if the surface under him were moving.  

He was in a hospital. As the hours went on, he lost a few more hours, after he drifted off again.  He had thought that after it all happened, he would find himself at a set of gates to see his parents once more, his body renewed. Maybe deep down on some level he hoped that would happen and he would get to see his parents again.  Each time he slept, if he slept long enough he had nightmares of the menacing figure of Dai Toyaka dripping in blood, slaughtering those around him.  

Skye awoke later with a start to feel a little bit of warmth over him, and heard a voice of a man talking to someone, probably a nurse.  

“Once he warms up, he’s going to be fine. The injuries were mild and he’s in shock.”  He felt something aching on the top of his head.  He tried to lift up a hand to rub it, but the arm felt unusually heavy and the hand was clumsy and clunky, he couldn’t even feel his fingers, and they didn’t seem to be working properly.   He slowly opened his eyes, and saw the strangest thing standing over him.

A horse.

Dressed as a doctor.  

“He’s awake.”  It said turning to him, with a nurse-horse also looking down at him.  He was in a hospital with a bunch of midget horses.  Skye gave a startled cry and ducked under the blanket. What kind of crazy drugs had they given him?   The doctor said something ,sounding confused but went on moving.  The sore spot on his head ached as he brushed up against something. He took a few deep breaths.  ‘It’s just the drugs’ he told himself. Though as his sight came back into focus, after being out of use so long, he noticed that there was something bright blue on him.  

“Just..the drugs…” he told himself again.  He went back into a deep sleep, and in the back of his mind reassured himself that this was all a very, very strange drug induced dream. At some point he heard a scream and some swearing. The voice sounded familiar, but he knew it was not Gem or Rusty.  He promised himself that when he woke up, if he woke up, he would never take drugs.  Ever.  

The noise faded out and sometime later he realized the lights were out. Skye tried to force himself to sleep a little longer, but his body seemed to be fighting every step of the way, and the annoying ache had turned into a full on headache.  Swearing under his breath he opened his eyes and pulled himself up.  

He was indeed in a hospital room, with curtains pulled up around him.  However he could see across from him and he noted a figure in bed.  He remembered that his friends and some other people had been with him.  He wondered what happened to them.

“Hello…..guys.”  Had they made it?  His heart almost skipped a beat when he remembered his little brother.  Had Timmy made it?  “Guys?”  he asked again his voice sounding weaker.  The silence bothered him.  “G-guys…please…..please….please say somethin’. A-anythin’.”  A panicking grief was starting to set in.  

“YES, WE HEAR YOU!” a familiar crabby voice snapped back.  He felt pure relief wash over him.  Someone else was there. “Now shut up, I’m trying to sleep, Stryke!”  The accent registered in his brain.  Felix hadn’t been with him so that meant- Toyaka.

“You been sleeping for hours, dumbass!”  Skye’s heart leapt again as he heard the familiar West Virginia accent of his best friend. The panic washed away, and he felt stupid for worrying. Of course they made it.

“You –you made it! You’re okay!”  he said, fumbling around to push himself up. He tried to move out of the bed and push back the curtain but all that happed was his body collapsing to the ground.  Again he saw the blue things, that were sticking out from his body.  He felt them hurt as he hit the floor. “Does anybody else feel like we were given some seriously weird drugs?”  The curtain pulled back and Skye saw a brown horse thing with a copper mane in a wheelchair (the way he was sitting was just weird, too) looking down at him.

“Yeah those ain’t no drugs, bro.”  The horse spoke with his friend’s voice.  

“…What. The. HELL. Is. Goin’ ON?”  Skye tried to pull himself up but only managed to do it half way.

“Oh hey…you got a horn.”  Rusty…or horse-Rusty said with a grin.  

“What……?” Skye said, he looked around and looked down at himself with a sense of dread slowly setting in.  “Show me.”  

“You sure that’s what you want, man?”

“Show me what I look like, Rusty.” He said quietly.  He must have sounded threatening because he saw his friend shrink back.

“You’re not gonna yell are ya, cuz we’ve already had Mr. Fancy Glasses over there yell, and I think people are startin’ to think we’re l’il crazy.” He said.

“I _feel_ crazy right now.” Skye said.  Rusty turned to his sister.

“ ‘ey Gem.  Mirror.”  He heard her sigh in annoyance.  

“Can you ask politely?”  Her voice sounded a bit, odd.  Like she had a cold, or had been crying.  Or crying with a cold.

“Oh sorry…mirror please?” He moved his wheelchair back and returned with a mirror in his mouth.

“Why are you holding in your mouth?” Rusty mumbled something, held up his hooves and shrugged.  Skye moved back on the bed as his friend spat out the mirror and handed it cautiously over with two hooves.

“Still getting’ used to these things, much harder than hands.” Skye took the mirror and held it up.  Staring back at him, to his dismay was a weird horseish face-light blue ,with a green and brown eye just as he had before, a yellow mane, and a horn in the middle of his forehead.  He didn’t scream but lowered it right away.

  “….so that’s what his magic did to us.”  He said.

“I-If it helps, it looks like everyone here is like that,” Rusty said, rubbing his neck.  

“…not really to be honest, but thanks for tryin’.”  Skye handed the mirror over with both han-hooves, and Rusty tried to carefully pass it back, but he fumbled and it broke halfway over.  “shit”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,  lookin’ at that mirror will probably just make y’all feel worse.” Rusty said knocking away the shards with his foot carefully.

“Y’all?  I’m one person, Rusty.” Skye said.

“I know, but Gem was having a hard time with it too, and me, and well, Mc Snotty (“OI!”). Pretty much the only one who didn’t freak was that girl with him.” Rusty lowered his voice, “to be honest, the way she’s just all cool ‘bout everythin’ kinda …it weirds me out, yanno?”

“That’s Anamaria Toyaka”  Skye said, also lowering his voice “Shiro’s sister…or..half sister..or something…I don’t know….  She’s….uh….quiet.”  

“Yeah, but who doesn’t wig out just a little when they’re turned into a …horse…pony thing.” Rusty said.   Skye shrugged.  

“How’s my brother?”  He said.  Rusty nodded towards the curtains on Skye’s other side.

“He’s been out the longest.” Rusty said, voice quivering, “I think he’s okay just…just…super tired or somethin’.  They were fixin’ his wing last I heard.”

“Wing?”  Skye asked.  “So he’s a…a….a-” He forgot the word, it was on the tip of his tongue.

“A pegasus.” Rusty said, “Like Four-Eyes Mc Whatsit”

“ALLRIGHT HICK, I CAN HEAR YOU” Shiro snapped from the other side of the room, “If you don’t stop calling me shit-“Rusty waved a hoof at him, but then lowered it, face falling.

“Aw shoot, I keep forgettin’ I don’t have fingers anymore.”

“Boys” Anamaria said, “Both of you stop being childish, we have enough problems.” Skye was a little stunned.  The last times he heard her speak, at the Psi Convention and the airport, she had a soft mousy sort of voice, and last time he had seen her she looked like she would burst into tears at a harsh word.  Now, well she had a similar voice, but it was rather sharp and commanding for someone only a year younger than he. She was also a unicorn , he noticed.

“She’s right.”  Gem sniffled a bit and he could hear her shuffling around in her bed.  “We need…”sniff “we need to figure out how we’re going to get back home-“  There was a sigh from Shiro.

“As much as I hate to say….it’s Dai, which means, it’s highly possible that we can’t go back.”  He fidgeted and moved in an upright position with his bandaged wings resting against a pillow.  “Crazy bastard he may be, he is very particular about his magic nonsense. What he did , it would practically be considered an act of high treason in our family…..so if he were going to take  that chance, he’d do his homework on it.”  Gem made a gasping noise in despair, and for a moment Skye saw a look of remorse on Shiro’s face.  “I’m sorry.”

“B-but…he’s crazy isn’t he?” Rusty argued, “He’s nuts, which means, he might have…I don’t know, done something wrong, or forgot something.”

“No.  He is crazy, but when he wants to be, he’s damn competent.” Shiro said annoyed, “Hell we’re lucky to be alive, really. Knowing his sick twisted mind”  

“Quit…quit tryin’ to mess with us man” Rusty said, starting to look panicked, “she’s upset enough…”He was probably trying to convince himself of this, like Skye was.  Shiro was untrustworthy, one of the enemies. That’s what Felix had told him, what he had learned from his time with his dad’s family.  The Toyakas were responsible for his father’s death, according to the file he found in Dex’s office.

“TRYING TO MESS WITH YOU?” Shiro leaned forward looking furious and one of his wings flapped ungracefully, “d-do you think I want to be here, stuck in this place with you, stranded forever, you idiot!”  

“BOYS!  For heaven’s sake!” Anamaria said, “No, Shiro was targeted just as you were for similar reasons.  Dai, as far as I know, never liked him very much.”

“But…”Skye said trying to speak above Shiro’s angry muttering. “They’re still related aren’t they? Still family? Still on the same side?”

“OBVIOUSLY Dai didn’t think so, halfwit or I wouldn’t be here.” Shiro was fuming.  Anamaria shook her head in annoyance.

“Same side?” She said sounding uncharacteristically derisive, “Am I to assume that’s the way the Stryke family works?   You’re all on the same side, and all have the very same opinions.  There’s no one who disagrees, no one who thinks the head of household is wrong.  Everyone always works together because you’re all related?  Hm?” Skye gritted his teeth, infuriated by her words and the mocking way she said them.

He thought of Leandra’s treatment of him and his brother, and her dislike of his late grandfather.  Her cultist father and his distrust of Skye and his family’s ‘branch’.  He thought of how his father was seen throughout the family and community as a troublemaker, and a failure, and how some of the relatives had never bothered to show their disdain for him even after his death.  

How Dex had told them that night , when Skye finally confronted him, that one of “the Stryke’s own “ had put money toward Elliott Stryke Sr. and his wife’s death, and Skye remembered how he knew exactly who it was months later when he was in the hospital hearing Rexford Hamilton tell he , Timmy, and Felix that they were disowned.

“No” he said angrily, “we don’t, in case you didn’t know, my father was their kicking bag, and my grandfather was hated constantly for mistake he made years ago. And everyone knows Rex is crazy as hell”

“Then why should you assume any different of us?” Anamaria said, “Are we not just like you?”

“No!” Skye said defiantly, “Because……because…you…”

“Yes, we have a poor leader and an unfavorable reputation.” She shrugged, “and you don’t?”  Skye stared back angry and furiously trying to think of a response.  But he had none.  The Strykes had a reputation that he had seen in action when he lived there, as being self righteous and incredibly proud.  But the Toyakas weren’t like other families.  That’s what Felix had told him.  “They’re like a bloody army for their mad leader.” Many people he had talked to had similar things to say. The Toyakas were, vicious, willing to do whatever it took, and out for themselves.

“Whatever…..”  He said sighing heavily.  “Let’s…give the past stuff a rest, all right.”  He said.  Shiro laughed harshly.  

“You’re only saying that because you won’t admit she’s right.” He said. Ana shot her brother a severe look making him falter and sink under the covers sheepishly.  

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.  The past is past and the old family grudge means nothing to a world that doesn’t know it.” Skye nodded, reluctantly agreeing for now.  He looked back to the curtains where his brother was, wishing he could see him.  

He had to know, and it made him downright uncomfortable to be kept guessing. He had almost lost his brother not even a year ago, when he was admitted to the hospital for a tonsil removal.  He was told something had gone wrong, in a routine operation that should have been easy. For one horrible hour, he thought his brother had been dead.  He remembered horrible things that had been looming in the back of his mind for years, too much for him to cope with.  Something inside him had almost shut down, as he felt that once the only remainder of his immediate family was gone, he had no purpose, no use.  

Skye tried to sleep, tossing and turning and trying not to hit his stupid horn on anything so he wouldn’t get another headache.  He awoke every now and then and watched the curtains listening for something.  Soon his patience was rewarded with the sound of breathing.  

Timmy was alive.  

That was enough to allow him to rest for the time being.  His body was worn out by all the emotions going through him.  Though, a question remained in the back of his mind.  How had all of them survived for so long out there?  How did they not freeze to death?  

*****

Twilight had thought that once Winter Wrap Up was done she would have a lot off her mind. She was wrong, now since the discovery of the ponies in the snow; she had more on her mind than ever. The discovery had left many of them, those who had seen it, quite shaken.  She would have wondered if this had something to do with what was going on in the Crystal Empire, but they weren’t Crystal Ponies.  One afternoon, she found herself off the ground after she spent so much time pacing.  

Shining Armor hadn’t said anything else about his situation, except for, that Cadence was stressed and he had to keep things under control in the Crystal Empire.  That bothered her.  She wished she knew what he meant about Cadence being stressed. She had seemed fine we they last saw her and she had even given Twilight tips on de-stressing.   Something had to be going on.

“Are you okay Twilight?”  She heard Spike ask.

“Yeah….I’m fine, just go back to bed Spike.” She said, “I was just…uh thinking.”

“It’s the middle of the night. Shouldn’t you get some sleep?”

“I’m fine, just go back to bed.”  Twilight insisted.  He shrugged and went back to bed and she went back to her pacing.  She decided that pressuring Shining into telling her would only make things worse, and she didn’t want to bother him while he was dealing with all this.  She should deal with what she could handle.  That is, the strange ponies.  

And maybe she should try getting some sleep.

*****

Dr. Horse looked over the scans he had done, still a bit confused about his newest patients.  They were mostly fine physically aside from bruises and wing problems, which was odd after the state he had seen them in splattered with blood (though not too terribly wounded).  The only thing that bothered him was their mental state.  They acted strange, like they weren’t used to their limbs, and couldn’t walk properly.  The youngest of them was extremely sluggish, only seeming to wake up once in a while, and he was pretty certain it was not healthy for a colt older than three to be sleeping more than twelve hours a day.  None of them had even mentioned their names.

He had tried to talk to the older ones, and ask them questions about what happened, but they always shrugged and said they couldn’t remember. He didn’t buy it.  They would occasionally be heard talking about things he didn’t understand (unless they saw him and they would just go quiet) and the earth pony mare certainly wasn’t crying about nothing.  But he was advised not to push the issue.  Nurse Redheart had told him it would probably only cause them to clam up more or feel threatened.  When he returned to their room he was surprised to find that the colt had moved.  He sat at the foot of the light blue unicorn’s bed. But, he was sleeping, again.

“Well, it seems some progress has been made.”  He said going over to check on him.  Though he wondered. Did the colt actually move of his own choice…or had the unicorn moved him. There was a wheelchair hastily shoved next to the bed.  “Did he move here by himself?” The older colt stiffened.  

“….he woke up.  And uh…he wanted to be closer.”  He said.  Dr. Horse nodded.  Right.

“Son, did you move him?  You have to be very careful-”  

“He said he wanted to move.” The unicorn insisted, “Besides, I’m his brother.”

“I understand but you’re not a licensed doctor, are you?”  He noticed the unicorn look down rubbing his hooves together nervously.  

“No…”  The little one curled up tighter as Dr. Horse got close.

“Ah d-don’ wanna move.”  If it weren’t for the fact that he was a pegasus, Dr. Horse would have sworn that the child could have been part of the Apple family with that drawl, the sunny colored hide and freckles on his face “a-ah w-wanna stay w-with h-him.”  The older sibling gave a ‘what-did-I-tell-you’ look. Dr Horse sighed.  

“Fine, but just let me have a look at your wings.”  The child nodded and tried to move his wings, only succeeding in a few weak flaps.  Dr. Horse used a spell to hold out one bandaged wing and look over it.  He carefully inspected the wing and then changed the bandages and moved to the other, feeling the older brother’s eyes on him as he worked. He had to admit; the child was quiet and cooperated better than the other pegasus of the group.  

In the end he was relieved to move on to the easier patients, but disappointed that he didn’t get anything out of the strange bunch.  

*****

“Are you sure you want to do that darling?” Rarity said as Twilight told her what she was thinking about.

“I can’t stop thinking about them, lying out there in the snow, I guess I just want to know they’re allright, and maybe I can find out what happened.” She said.  She had been worrying about what had caused the shocking sight in front of them and what it might mean for Ponyville.  In her worst dreams she had seen some horrible shadow lurking just inside the forest.  She went to Zecora and asked if she had seen anything happen, anything dangerous around.  

No ferocious monsters, just a unicorn with a sled.   She briefly wondered if that unicorn might have been the one …but then she dismissed it.  She just couldn’t imagine that another pony could do something like this.  Why they would want to?

“Besides if there is a threat to Ponyville , it’s my responsibility to take care of it. I’m the Princess.”  

“About time you acknowledged it-“

“Rarity”  Applejack said warningly.  “I agree with Twilight.  I think we should go see how they’re doin’ , if they’re allright, and find out what happened to ‘em. Apple Bloom has been just beggin’ me to be able to go visit Zecora, but I just can’t rest thinkin’ there’s something out there that might hurt her.”  

“I wasn’t disagreeing dear.  And I do agree.  I’ve been telling Mother and Father to keep a careful eye on Sweetie Belle.  I simply couldn’t imagine if something happened to her.” There were a few mutters from the rest of the group.

“Yeah, it would be cool to see if they’re okay.” Rainbow Dash said as a few eyes turned on her.

“Hey maybe we can throw a hospital party for them” Pinkie Pie suggested.

“…I don’t know about that, they probably still need time to rest.”  Twilight said.  She imagined that a surprise party might do more harm than good.  After whatever they’d been through, surprises might not be a good idea.  What had they been through?

The mares decided and made the trip to the hospital and Twilight explained to the desk pony that they were coming to visit some ponies.  

“Names?”

“We don’t know, we just know that we found them on Winter Wrap Up…”

“Ohh those ponies…” she said sighing, “Let me get Dr. Horse…”  She walked off for a moment and came back with one of the head doctors.  

“Hello, we’re here to see-“

“-how the Winter Wrap Up Ponies are doing?”  Dr. Horse finished.

“Don’t you know their names by now?” Twilight asked. Had they been calling them the Winter Wrap Up Ponies all this time?

“No, actually.  None of them have told us. We’ve tried asking who they are, who their parents are, nothing.”  He said.  “They just keep evading our questions, saying they can’t remember.  I think one of them told me ‘no ahblo ingles’ at some point…whatever that means.”  He led them toward a room. “Normally we would only let family see them, but they don’t seem to have any family.”  Twilight frowned not sure she had heard right.   No ahblo ingles… was that some sort of code or cipher?

He led them into the room.  The first thing she realized is that she was relieved they were alive. She would have hated to hear that the ponies they worked so hard to save died anyway.  She looked around at them all.  The first thing she noticed was that they were all in pairs, two unicorn and pegasus pairs and one earth pony pair.    

“This is Princess Twilight Sparkle, and the Elements of Harmony, they found you out in the snow.”  The nurse said.  Twilight tried not to wince at being addressed as such, and she noticed some of the surprised looks the Winter-Wrap-Up ponies had.  The last thing she needed was for them to be afraid of her.  

“Thank you, but, we’d like to talk to them alone if that’s all right.” The doctor and nurse looked surprised but did as she said.  Aside from the sound of the door locking it was all quiet.  “Well, I’m glad to see you’re all okay. “  

“….uh thanks,”  the light blue unicorn stallion was the first to talk, and the accent he spoke with was similar to Applejack’s.  “For savin’ us.  If it weren’t for you we probably would have frozen to death.” The others nodded and muttered quiet ‘thank you’s.

“No problem” Rainbow Dash said.  “We couldn’t just let you lie out there.”  

“Now, we have some questions to ask you” Twilight said, noticing as they looked nervous again.  “First off, what happened to you?”  There was a heavy silence, only broken by the sounds of coughing, throat clearing and shuffling of hooves.  The smallest of the ponies, the yellow pegasus colt curled up, seemingly looking like he was sleeping.  Rainbow sighed in frustration and Applejack gave her a nudge. “We know that something terrible happened, and you’re all really scared, but we want to help you.”  

“It’s….more complicated than that.”  The other unicorn, a violet colored young mare who spoke in a high class accent said.  She sat next to dark blue pegasus with bandaged wings.   “Nobody would believe it.”

“We’ve seen a lot of stuff, like chaos taking over the world, and faced Nightmare Moon which everyone thought was an old mare’s tale. “ Rainbow Dash said confidentially.

“This is different though.”  She said, “It’s so…completely crazy that even we couldn’t believe it at first.”

“…ya know maybe before we get into the heavy stuff we should ask names.” Applejack suggested. The young earth pony mare gave a weak sarcastic little laugh.

“Believe me, we’d love that too, but well…..our names are different from your names.  They won’t make sense until you know the rest of the story.”

“And…uh….I don’t think you’ll like the rest of the story.” The male unicorn said.  

“Okay we get it, it’s terrible” Rainbow Dash said,  “Can you guys just quit beating around the bush and tell us already?” She hovered in the air above the rest of them.

“Rainbow!”  Twilight , Applejack, Rarity and Fluttershy said all said at once.  

“Dear, we understand that you and your friends have been through a lot.  We promise that, unless you did anything, which we don’t think you did that we won’t judge you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”  Rarity said.  The younger group of ponies all looked at each other , again, and the young unicorn stallion sighed.

“If you say so.”  He turned to the pegasus on the other side of the room. “Toyaka…wake up, we’re going to need your help in telling this.”  The pegasus grumbled and pulled himself up.  

“I wasn’t sleeping….”   He clumsily rubbed his head with his hooves and readjusted his position.  “okay….okay…..let me think.  It’s a bit of long story but well we came from somewhere else, and our bodies were…erm….in a very different form.  It was one he-  er  a real shock waking up in these bodies. We’re not …er not ponies”

“Not ponies?” Twilight , as well as her friends repeated, some shocked and others curious. Twilight herself felt rather confused.  She couldn’t think of anything else they could be.

“No….we’re different but  that’s a whole other story to get into later.”  He said.

“Could your other bodies use magic?” Twilight asked.

“Yes and no…?”  the pegasus said, “Some of us have abilities that others don’t.  There’s two sorts…Psi who have inborn …mutations I think is the right word…”  

“Mutations? Rainbow Dash asked, “So you have super powers like the Power Ponies?”  The pegasus laughed dryly, almost bitterly.

“Super powers….I wouldn’t quite say that.  ANYway ….some of us have these powers which we gain at childhood and slowly adapt to.  Others don’t have them and, well the two groups reacted to each other about as well as you’d expect at first,   fighting, hating , sometimes killing each other…”

“Oh my….” Rarity said.

“Ponies had the same thing, it’s what the Hearth’s Warming Eve was all about” Applejack said, “Setting aside our differences and learnin’ to get along.”

“Yeah…..see our …uh ‘people’ didn’t have tha-“

“You called yourselves people?” Rainbow Dash said trying to hide her snickering. “What kind of name is that?” The pegasus growled, probably annoyed at being interrupted again.

“I don’t know why do you call yourselves ponies?”  he snapped.  That stopped Rainbow’s snickering.

“because…well…we always have!  It just …”  she struggled with her answer, ”It’s just what we’ve always done!”

“Rainbow!” Twilight said.  She had to admit, she really couldn’t think of why ponykind called themselves ponies either.  They just….did.  “Please continue.” It felt weird not being able to call the other ponies something.

“Okay…so our people, well we haven’t quite worked that whole peace bit out.  After Psikind was hunted and hated for a good while, we went into hiding and developed secrecy codes.  Nobody trusted the mundane enough to try and hash things out.  But then again that’s what happens when someone hunts you down , tortures and kills you.”  Twilight and Applejack exchanged looks as Applejack mouthed “kill?”.  Murders were fairly rare among ponies ever since the beginning of Alicorn rule.  It was considered something that monsters did, more often than not. Torture was equally as foreign.  Twilight could understand what the Winter Wrap Up Ponies meant when they said she and her friends wouldn’t like it.  

It would only get worse from there.

*****

The search parties lasted nearly all night and were all infuriatingly fruitless.  Nobody had seen or heard from Skye Stryke or his friends.  Marina couldn’t fault the parents who went home to their little ones.  Every time she saw someone coming out her heart would leap in hopes that with them would be her nephews and Theresa and Duane’s kids and every time it crashed back down when the searchers returned alone with a solemn “sorry”.  All she could think about is what she should have done when Skye took off to find his brother.  

By the time the sun rose over the small community, she felt almost crushed enough to cry.  In the end only she, Felix, Caleb, their friend and Theresa and Duane were out looking.  

“I’m sorry about this” she said, “But we’ll find them. So help me God, I won’t stop lookin’ til we do.”  

“We’ll keep our eyes out.”  Duane said.  Marina noticed that Theresa wasn’t saying anything, just looking hopeless and angry.

“I never shoulda let them go…” she said.

“I know…same here…”  Marina said.

“I never should have let them run off with him.”  Marina looked up.

“Wait…wait a moment….what?” she said. , “Theresa, what are you talking about?” Her husband started to say something but Theresa held up a hand.

“I’m sorry but, well.  Let’s look at facts.  Ever since….ever since last year there’s been nothing but trouble surrounding the Strykes, and then, my kids went off for the summer to my mom, and catch up with him, and then they wind up threatened by guards in an office in the middle of the night, helping Skye Stryke.  Then, on their way home, they get kidnapped by Skye Stryke’s older brother.  Then they come home, and now they’re gone after going out somewhere with Skye Stryke. Notice a pattern?”  

“Are you saying-“

“I’m saying that maybe, as much as Duane and I like the kid, he’s been nothing but a dangerous influence. Everything weird that has ever happened to them can be tied back to your nephew.  You can’t deny that!”  Duane finally got a word in over his wife.

“I think we should leave before we say things we all regret.”  He said.  But as he led her out, what he said to Marina cut like a knife. “I’m sorry for your loss, Marina but try to remember that your kids aren’t the only ones missing.”   Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed like “and it was because of your sister’s kid” was what he wanted to say.   The last people left leaving Felix and Marina alone.

Her best friends blamed her.

No, they blamed her nephew, which to be honest still felt just as bad.  The two of them walked to her home in silence.  Marina had the brief urge to yell at, or throttle Felix for not being there.  But she knew that wasn’t fair.  Felix was gone, trying to get a job and he had no idea anything had happened.

She had known Skye and Timmy since they were born.  It was true that a lot of things seemed to befall her sister after she married Elliott Stryke, and because of that Marina had spent an entire year after their deaths trying to not hate her late brother in law and trying not to blame herself for telling Melanie to pursue her feelings for him in the first place.  So she could understand how her old college friend was feeling.  But still she didn’t want to accept it.  Skye was a good kid!  He had always been a good kid, and it certainly wasn’t his fault he was born into the Strykes’ mess.  She paced around the island thinking about what to do.  Felix had already tried calling Skye’s phone, but there was no answer.

A though occurred to her as she passed by the phone for the fifth time.  Before Skye and Timmy returned to the United States, she got a call from none other than Elliott Stryke’s estranged older son Dex, saying that the boys were coming back, and they would need her. It had been very strange since, the last time she saw the punk, he hated his father and did whatever he could to make the Strykes miserable.  Then Skye came back and told her everything he found out, and she wanted to wring Dex’s neck even more.

She dialed the number, which she had copied down after she got the call, being still wary enough of Dex to want to keep tabs on him.  She had a lot to say to him and none of it was fit for anyone under …maybe fifteen to hear (good thing Felix was an adult).  “Pick up you little…”

Voicemail.

“DAMN IT!”  she tried again and got the same.  “That slippery bastard!”

“Not picking up?” Felix said.

“Of course not” she said , “hell knowing him I wouldn’t be surprised if this had Toyaka fingerprints all over it.”  The two of them paused for a moment and looked at each other.

“….maybe we’re looking for the wrong person.”  Felix said.

“You think?”  Marina looked back at the phone.  “Well….it beats waiting around for my parents to call. “  They both headed for her car, and then tore out of the driveway.  She had not been looking forward to hearing whatever her parents had to say, no doubt it would be blaming her, as if she didn’t blame herself enough already.  Better to get something done than wait around squabbling over whose fault it was. “Felix, do you have the numbers of anyone else in the Toyaka family?”

“A few….I have Dex….we already called him ….and I have Shiro, don’t know why.”  

“Shiro , the kid from the airport?”

“Yeah….”

“Try him, for all we know maybe the kid knows something and we can get it out of him.”  She said.  Normally she wasn’t one to advocate browbeating children for information, even bratty rich ones, but right now Melanie’s kids were missing, her (possibly ex) best friend’s kids were missing and she was running on a night of no sleep. It didn’t seem like a bad idea at this point.


	8. Evil Magic

It didn’t take much driving for them to get to the side of town that Dex and the other Toyakas had been staying.  It was a  an old run down complex of apartments on the very edge of the neighboring towns.   It seemed to be a place no one else really wanted to live.  

“You’d think they’d choose a nicer place” Felix commented.

“You’d think, but considering the town you’re in, son I don’t think there’s a lot of options” Marina said.  “Come on.  You know how to break down a door?”

“I have my ways, yeah.”  He said.  “How often do the police come around here?”  Felix looked around  nervously.  He was not opposed to giving the Toyakas a hard time for this but he couldn’t help be disturbed at how on board with this Marina was.  

“Not often but we should be quick.” She said. “Come on..”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“No. I’ll survive.”  Felix sighed.  It was less her surviving and more him surviving he was worried about , should something go wrong.  He followed her to up to one of the houses.   “No cars out. No cars in the garage”  The garage had been left wide open.

“That’s weird” Marina remarked.  

“It is.” Felix said.  “Do you still want to…”

“Definitely”    It took a few tries from both of them to bust open the door, to get past all of the locks.  Felix knew what they were doing was breaking and entering and could probably get them in trouble. But he also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Toyakas were responsible for the disappearance  

He wanted his cousins back, and his cousins’ friends back, and if this was the way to do it, so be it.  It’s not like he could turn back the clock and follow Skye and his friends.  He wished he could turn back time when Skye was concerned about his younger brother the night before.  

When Skye was panicking because the Finns had called to accuse Marina when Timmy didn't come  home, Felix had assured him that it would be alright and Tim just needed some time to himself.  The more he thought about it, the louder the voice in the back of his head that told him that he could have changed all this became.  

When they burst into the house, they both went in opposite directions looking through the house for any trace.  Papers, notes phone messages, anything it took.

Felix noticed that only half of the ridiculous amount of locks were done. Whenever Dex last left he was in  a hurry.  Noted.  

He scanned the rest of the room  and made his way to a desk with an answering machine. Of course.  

Going through the messages, he didn’t find anything obviously incriminating, but after  a few listens he picked up on a few things. Dex knew Timmy was visiting the old house,  he was concerned about the Finns’ raising methods.  

‘Why would he care?” Felix thought. It was technically his fault they were here.   His hatred for Dex burned even harder.  Filthy hypocrite.  Then he got something interesting.

After the beep a rough voice came on.  Dai, one of the craziest Toyakas in the ‘head family’.  

_“ Allright, we need to talk about some shit, Ponytail.  Somethin’s up with our Head of Household, and you know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Meet me outside town tomorrow night.”_

Silence.  Then the next one.  

Either Dex didn’t show up to their meeting , or maybe he did and things ended badly.  But after that Dai left a few messages demanding Dex’s attention . It seemed like Dex didn’t want to hear it.   Then  there was nothing else.  

Felix sighed, thinking about what he had just heard.  He didn’t think Dex was innocent by any stretch of the imagination, but he might not be the prime culprit here.  

“Did you find anything”  Marina asked.  He gave an involuntary jump.  

“...oh..  Yeah  I think so.”  He showed her the tapes.  

“I’m guessing that meeting didn’t go well.”  Marina said after it was done.

“But whatever it was, it might have something to do with what happened to them.”   Felix nodded.  “What did you find?”  

Marina held up a file folder. “A lot of really disturbing stuff going on in this family.  I’ll be holdin’ on to this.”  

“Well the Toyakas have their reputation for a reason.”  Felix felt a little guilty.  As much as his family had indoctrinated the belief that the Toyakas had a “reputation” , the last year had showed him that his family wasn’t exactly slacking in skeletons in the closet either.  They just hid it better.    

They continued to look around for things, but nothing else really came up.  They couldn’t open the rest of the file cabinet in Dex’s office because wherever Dex went he had the keys, and they couldn’t very well break it open.  They had a moment to fix everything up before the door opened.  Both Marina and Felix had perhaps a few moments to react before they heard who it was.

“What the hell?  Someone’s broken in!”  

“Sam…..what if they’re still here?”

It was a bit of a blur , what happened in those next few minutes. Marina got up and told him to follow her lead.  They grabbed something lying around as a weapon, and went to the main room.  

Isamu and Leo stood in the main room of the apartment looking around for things that had been damaged and checking for things that had been stolen.

“Well hello there boys”  Marina smacked the handle of a swiffer broom in her palm. “Nice of you to join us.”

“You broke into our house?”  

“Please don’t take anything.”  Leo pleaded.  

“We don’t want any of your toys” Felix said, rolling his eyes.  

“This is a fuckin’ crime.  I’m calling the police” Isamu  made for the phone. Marina smiled and picked up , handing it to him.  

“Go ahead,”  She said cheerfully.  “I’m sure they’d love to hear about what your family’s been doing.  And where your cousins are?”   Marina Finn was a scary woman sometimes.  Isamu and Leo exchanged looks.  

“What do you want?” Felix closed the door behind them.  Not only because he didn’t want their voices to carry but because he wanted to rattle the two.  

“Where are the kids?  Where’s your leader?  What’s going on here? Start talkin’ boys.”  The looks in their eyes plainly showed that they knew they were cornered.  

Now what did they have to say?  

*************

There was nothing more awkward and uncomfortable than trying to explain to a group of peaceful ponies why your families hated each other for centuries.  Especially when most of them didn’t know all of the story themselves.  Skye explained what he knew and then looked over to Shiro and Ana. They’d been in the community for longer.  

“So your families hate each other over something that happened  hundreds of years ago?” Rainbow Dash asked.  “You ever considered, I dunno getting over it?”

“We would but-”  

“We tried”  The two sides shot glares at each other.  “There was a truce when two people from our family married each other.  But it fell apart because someone didn’t treat their husband well and he left -“  

“What are you looking at me for?” Shiro exclaimed angrily.  

Ana pulled him back gently tugging gently at one wing and shot a look at Skye.  He backed down.  He knew he said he’d try to forget the business between their families but the more he thought about it, the more he got angry.    

“Okay, your families don’t like each other” the orange pony said.  “Now…..how did you end up here?”  

Skye bit his lip and looked at the others.  “Well….”

‘One of our cousins went rogue”  Shiro said, “He  was already crazy,  but he decided that getting rid of our enemies and ...some of the more unclean in the family...I guess.. Something about pruning the family tree of it’s tainted branches.  Why he decided I’m tainted I have no idea.”

“It’s because your mom was one of us”  Skye said it before he could stop himself.  

“What?  You’re lying.  My mum is an only child.”  

“From what family?”  Skye asked.

“....she never said”  Shiro shifted uncomfortably.  “But it doesn’t matter!”

Skye rolled his eyes.  If Shiro wanted to delude himself that was his problem.  “Anyway….he managed to kidnap all of us, one by one….and...well….last I remember  he was doing some kind of ritual with….well….”  This was the part he didn’t like to think about, he saw enough of it in his nightmares.  “With our blood.”  

That caused  a reaction from the Princess and her friends.  All of them had looks of shock and horror.  Rainbow muttered “You’re kidding right?”’

“No..  I wish.”  Skye said.  “he had a bunch of stuff written in blood and a magic circle with a bunch of symbols on it-”

The Princess had been looking more and more pale and she made a mad dash out of the room.  

 

*************

 

“Twilight!”  Rainbow Dash called.  “..I  urgh TWI!”  She took off leaving Fluttershy to cry on the already shaken Applejack’s shoulder. Pinkie shook as she tried to shake Rarity awake.  Rainbow searched in every room –often getting asked to leave until she found a path of purple feathers to follow.  For whatever reason she hadn’t expected the most brilliant of them to be the one most affected.  Why? She didn’t know, but she had expected to turn to _Twilight_ for her answers.

 _Why_ did such a disgusting thing exist?

 _Who_ could do that?

 _Why_ would they?

She followed Twilight’s feathers into a room where she had her head in a trashcan, shoulders shaking.

“Twi?” Twilight slowly raised her head after wiping her mouth.  Her face was slightly tear-streaked.

“I….I thought it was just a myth..th-that magic like that didn’t work” she said weakly.  Rainbow came closer, shaking herself.

“You…know about this…?

“When I was younger…there were some books in the Royal Library that I desperately wanted to read.  C-Celestia forbade them and hid them b-but I was so curious…” Rainbow Dash put a wing around her friend.

“You just wanted to know what they weren’t telling you, huh?”  She said.

“Yes” Twilight’s voice was barely a whisper.  “a-and I found them…it was h-horrible. So horrible.  I couldn’t get it out of my mind.  Celestia understood and sh-she said not to worry that it was worthless magic and a waste of time.  I….”   Rainbow Dash nodded but didn’t say anything.  It seemed like that little voice in the back of her head that was supposed to tell her when to stop talking decided to work.  “I’m sorry…I’m sorry I just broke like that.  I’m supposed to be a leader-“

“Hey…..everyone’s a li’l shaken up.  We’re only ponies.  Even you, Princess.”  Rainbow Dash said.

“I-I think my stomach settled” Twilight said, “If anyone asks…let’s just say lunch didn’t agree with me” Rainbow chuckled.

“So…what are we going to do about them….?”  Twilight looked down.

“I’ll think of something….”

*************

There was a long period of silence and a heavy sense of awkwardness in the air.  Skye didn’t really know what to say and he felt awful for making the Princess so upset. Even if he was just telling the truth. Shiro threw him a dirty look.  

“What would you have said?” He shot back.  

“I-i -d-dunno…” Shiro faltered.  “But...I would have said it better.”

Before any more words could be said, the orange pony got between them.  

“Now that’s enough you two.” She said.  “It weren’t yer fault Twilight got upset.  You were just tellin’ the truth. Sometimes the truth ain’t easy to hear.”  

Skye looked down sheepishly.   “If I know Twi, she’ll be right as rain in a lil bit.”  

“....is your friend there alright?” Shiro looked in the direction of the formerly tear-stained yellow pegasus.

“She’ll be fine, sugarcube.”  In a few moments Rainbow and Twilight came back in.

“I’m sorry about that.” the Princess said.  “I’m all right now.  I believe the magic used on you is considered very dark magic.”

“It is where we came from as well “ Ana said.  “Unfortunately D-our cousin has always been interested in the more unpleasant aspects of magic.”  

Rainbow Dash held up a hoof.  “Um excuse me, sorry to interrupt but...what do you guys have to do with all this?” He looked towards Rusty and Gem.  

“We’re ...uh  his friends….he grew up in our hometown.” Gem said, nodding at Skye.

“We haven’t got any powers , so I guess that’s why the nutcase thought we were damn near worthless.”  Skye winced looking down again.  He had gotten his friends into this.  Now they would never see their family either.

“I….I’m so sorry” He said trying to hold back tears. It’s my fault you’re here.”  

He felt a hoof on his shoulder.  “Hey.” Rusty wrapped his foreleg around him, “It isn’t your fault.  We’re your friends.  We’ll get through this together.”  

He felt two ponies hugging him,   Gem and Rusty were on either side of him, trying to comfort him.  

“....yeah”  He said.  He pushed back the horrible feeling rising up in him.  He had his friends, and they still liked him, no matter what it might tell him.  

“So...what do we do now?”

One of the Princess’s friends shut the door behind them while the others were gathered around them.  

“Can we know your names now?”  Rainbow asked.  

“You know what,  Rainbow , that’s a great idea. Why don’t we all introduce each other” The orange farm pony said.  “I’m Applejack, and this here is Rainbow Dash.”  

“My name is Pinkie Pie!  Nice to meet ya!”  the pink bouncy pony had gone from the other side of the room to in their faces in a matter of seconds.  Applejack pulled her back.  

The yellow pegasus  walked closer hiding behind a curtain of hair.  “M-my name’s ...um...my name’s Fluttershy.”  

The white unicorn next to her, approached them with confidence and grace,  “My name is Rarity. dear.”  There was a silence and Skye and his friends looked at each other.  

Shiro coughed.

“....well our names probably won’t make sense to you then.”  Rusty said.  

“That’s okay.” the Princess said, “We understand.”

Skye cleared his throat.  Might as well get this over with. “My name is Skye.”  He turned to his little brother who’d been sleeping through everything.  “This is Timmy.”  He wondered if his brother’s lethargy had more to do with the sudden loss of his newly developed electrokinetic power, or the grief and depression they had experienced as their parents’ death sunk in.  

“I’m Rusty, and this is my twin sister-”

“Gem.”  There was a moment of friction between the two, but it thankfully dissipated right away.

The six mares looked over to the other side of the room.  “Oh….”  Shiro shifted in the bed.  “Shiro Toyaka.”  

“Anamaria”  Ana left her last name off, interesting.  

“Thank you for your cooperation today.  I know it wasn’t hard to talk about for any of us, but knowing the truth will go a long way in helping you.  I need to send a report to Princess Celestia to see what we can do.”

Skye nodded.  He honestly didn’t think there was much that could be done.  “Thanks.”  

*************

That night in the library Twilight was going through her books.  Deep down she thought it was a waste of time, she wouldn’t find anything about dark magic here.

“Well….” Twilight shut her latest book while Applejack was pacing back and forth.  “That’s just about all of the books that might tell me anything.  I shouldn’t have expected something like this in the Ponyville Library” She sighed and tried to remember anything from the horrible books in Celestia’s library.  But she couldn’t remember much just gruesome illustrations and descriptions that made her ill.  She sighed, and then called for Owlicious, her nighttime assistant.

She was hesitant to expose Spike to the kind of creepy stuff that she had just learned about.  She dictated a letter to her tied it up and called for Spike.

“Yeah…”

“Can you send this to Celestia?”

“Is this about the ponies you found in the snow?” Spike rubbed his eyes.

“Yes.  They’re a little different.”  Spike took the letter and sent it.  It was two hours – two hours of pacing and awkward silence- until Spike burped up the letter from Celestia.   Twilight caught it and the noticed Spike stood there watching.

“Well aren’t you going to read it out loud?” Twilight sighed.  She really didn’t want to tell Spike about this just yet, but at the same time he did send the letter.  It was unfair to keep him deliberately in the dark.

“Tell you what; I’ll talk to you about it later, okay?”  The young dragon when up to his room grumbling darkly. Twilight felt her insides squirm; something pecking at her in the back of her mind telling her she was being unfair.  She told herself she would talk to him later and shook it off.

_Dear Twilight,_

_I thank you for bringing this to my attention.  Unfortunately I have bad news for you.  If the magic that brought these beings here did indeed use their blood then there is likely no way for them to return.  This sounds like the work of a Banishment Curse which was intended to lock enemies out of their world.  I can’t imagine why one would target mere fillies and colts for such a cruel spell but I assure you if they do show themselves here, they will be prosecuted to the full extent of our laws._

_With Love and Great Regret,_

_Celestia_

 

“Banished?”

“Forever?”  All six of them exchanged looks of shock.  It was hard to imagine but if even Celestia was saying there’s no way then it was hard to argue.  Twilight took a deep breath.

“Well…this means that once we break the news, it’ll be up to us to help them adjust.” she said.

**********

Dai had been so focused on carrying out his plan that he hadn’t thought nearly enough how much time the aftermath would take.  He was in a hurry trying to clean up the scene of the crime.  He grabbed a few things he needed from the shack, then he burned down the old shack, and burned away the fingerprints, and whatever might be left.  He left some evidence, just enough that people believed his captors dead as well as something that would lead people to believe he died as well.

Those gloves he got from his dear aunt really came in handy.  

Once everything was taken care of, it was time to skip town.  He had at least prepared to grab things and get ready to run.  Taking out Dex made it a little easier.  

He must have traveled for a good eight and a half hours, getting out of town as fast as he could with the time he’d bought himself.  He was halfway through Kentucky before he allowed himself to stop.  

He used the credit card he’d nabbed from Dex to get himself a nice place and some dinner. He had no clear idea of where he was headed after at the moment.  That was probably something he should work out.  

He pulled out a spare road map he’d gotten and started scanning it.  The Toyakas did some business with the Americans, but Dai himself had little experience with the psi and magic communities of America.  That was something he’d have to work on.  

He recalled hearing somewhere that somewhere around the West Coast, there was a community of American Toyakas, filled with those who had left the noble household.  Hmm...tempting.  He would like to face some of these pathetic family abandoners one day.  But perhaps not just yet.  Maybe sometime after he had been long forgotten about.  

Dai stuck pushpins in the map, planning possible places he could stay.  

“Huh.  Kentucky? Thought you’d want more of a change of scenery.”  Dai looked up at the voice, which he recognized the moment he had heard it.

The one person he couldn’t run away from.  

Ambrose Lasko, his aunt’s secret ‘business partner’ and confidante, leaned against the wall.  Lasko seemed to be a sorcerer, but had something off about him.  

“What are you doing here?” Dai asked.  Lasko chuckled and walked over to his table.

“Because something weird has been happening. We haven’t gotten reports from Dex or Shiro or you in 24 hours and Kags is gettin’ pretty worried.  Would you know anything about that, Dai?”  Dai gulped.  If Dex was hard to hide all this from, Lasko would be damn near impossible.  

“.....” He fumbled for the right words. “I...I don’t know.  Maybe…maybe…”

“Maybe you do know….”  Lasko said.  “Come on.  I’m not in the mood to listen to you trying to cover your ass.”  He slammed his hand on the table and leaned in close.  “I’d just fess up if I were you. It’d make things a whole lot easier.”  

Dai licked his lips, feeling his throat drying up..  The atmosphere somehow just got a lot colder. “I….I…..”  He gulped again.  “I-”

“You what, Dai?” Lasko’s voice sounded dangerously low.  

“I “  Dai gulped and got his courage up, Lasko wasn’t that strong looking.  “I took care of the folks that have been distractin’ Kagami. All right?  I got them out of the way, so we could focus on taking down the enemy!”  

Lasko grabbed him by the shirt and shoved him into a wall.  “YOU _KILLED_ THEM?”

“No I didn’t kill ‘em”  Dai said.  “I banished ‘em.”  Lasko’s eyes were lit up with a furious blaze.  

“AND THAT’S MUCH BETTER, YOU CRAZY ASSHOLE?” A good hard punch hit the wall right next to Dai’s head.  

“It was for the good of the family”  Dai shot back.  

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Lasko asked.  “How.   _How_?”

“Getting ‘em out of the way. So we can take out and conquer the Strykes like we’re meant to.” He winced as Lasko gave a deep aggravated sigh. He spoke softly but that didn’t make it any less threatening.

“ _That’s_ what this is all about?  Your little ego slapfight with the Strykes?”  he asked. “You banished a bunch of people to a different world for the sake of beating a family you don’t like?”

“It’s for their own good too.  Get rid of the ones with mixed loyalties, all the potential traitors.  They can’t survive this fight either, if they’re not willing to take out the enemy. Or too weak in Shiro’s case.”  Dai said.  Lasko didn’t seem any happier with this, the air around him just got colder.  

“Oh I’m sure.  Because getting rid of Kagami’s biggest voice of sanity and half decent morality is a grand idea.”  he spat.  He pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t hand you into the authorities right now, Dai.   _ **One**_ _good_ _reason_.”

Dai was really starting to panic.  None of his arguments were getting through to Lasko.  He didn’t know if anything would convince him...except…..

“I know exactly what happened, and I know the magic I used to send them there.” He said.  “What are you going to do to fix this without me?”  Lasko opened his mouth to say something but closed it.  

“Unfortunately you make a good point.  The first good point you’ve made in this _entire_ conversation, mind.” He said.  “Still...do you have any fuckin idea how you’ve just fucked up everything?  Do you know who Kagami’s other son is?  A sadistic sociopath raised by a hired killer.”  

“So long as he gets the job done.” Dai said.  “Better than having someone sympathetic to Trykes-”  he felt the sting of a slap against his face.  

“Shut up.  I don’t have time for that bullshit. Now, if I’m going to help you out here, you’re going to do exactly what I say.  You got that?”  

Dai groaned.  He had no chance.  “Fine.”  

“Allright.”  Lasko reached down and grabbed half the burger Dai hadn’t touched and bit into it.

“The ‘ell?”  Dai glared up at him.  

“That’s tax.  Now if you don’t mind” Munch “I have to clean up your mess as best I can. I’ll be back.  Don’t go anywhere, because I will track you down.”  Lasko walked out, still finishing off Dai’s sandwich.  

“Maybe if you eat something with little ebola in it, you learn not to nick food off someone’s plate.”  Dai muttered bitterly.

What he didn’t expect was to get a reply.  “It’s not like I can get any dead-er!”  

Well, that explained a bit.


End file.
